Star Trek: Warlord, It Never Rains
by Morphere
Summary: The stories of the prototype Dreadnaught Mark II class starship, the USS Warlord. The first story is now complete. My thanks for those who took the time to leave a review of my work. Please keep reading!
1. Chapter 1

Thankfully, the darkness hid her expression of frustration and eventual eye roll. Captain Velasquez tapped her communications badge. "Bridge to engineering." Her voice was calm...almost. 

There was a slight pop from the badge's speaker. "Engineering...this is Ensign McAffery." His voice was a little shaky. In the background, the distinct sound of Australian-accented swearing could be heard.

"Ensign," the Hispanic voice of the captain started slowly, "normally by now the emergency batteries would have kicked in and we would at least have lights. Can I assume this was a step backwards?"

Her comm badge popped again, "Captain, this is Chief Engineer Kelly," The Australian engineer's voice was fast, and unusually stressed. "This shouldn't have happened. We even tried switching back to umbilical power. That's not working, either. Something must have shorted in the main power grid. I'm trying to get a hold of a flashlight...OW!" There was an audible thud as something, or someone hit the ground. "Who left a bloody spanner on the floor?"

"Sorry, Sir," a male ensign replied sheepishly.

"Stay wherrre you arrre, Mr. Kelly," replied the voice of a sultry, Catian female. "I shall find a light forrr you. I can see in the darrrk."

"Is everything alright down there?" asked the captain.

"Yeah," replied the senior engineer. "No worries. It may be a few minutes before we can get the lights back on. Woo hoo!" The engineer sounded startled. "Watch the hands, Ensign!"

"Sorrry, Sirrr," replied the Catian engineer. There was a certain playfulness in her voice. The feline Catian race had the notorious reputation throughout the Alpha quadrant as flirts. Apparently, that reputation was well earned.

Yeah, well," Lt. Kelly stuttered, trying to regain his composure, "The cabinet you want is just to the left of the first maintenance station, and nowhere near me bum. Captain, tell everyone to just sit tight."

"Leiutenant, I can't see my hand in front of my face. There's little else we can do until the lights are back on. Oh...you might want to remind your crew of the strict no fraternization with superior officers rule we have in Starfleet. Bridge out." The captain tapped her comm badge again. Normally, such inter-species social collisions would have been downright funny to Lydia Velasquez, but now she just wants her lights back. She tried very hard not to be upset. After all, Tom Kelly had only been aboard for five days. In that five days, he had worked miracles in a lot of places. This, however, had been his third attempt to get the new ship under its own power...his third failed attempt. Her headache was coming back.

Through the corner of her eye, Captain Velasquez saw the blue glimmer of a PADD's computer screen come to life to her right. In the faint light, she could make out the face of her first officer seated next to her. He pulled out a stylus from the side of the PADD and began writing. He noticed his captain looking over at him inquisitively. "I figured I'd add the 'operate on internal power' task back on the to-do list." He smiled sardonically.

"Ah," the captain replied slowly. "What does our to-do list look like now, anyway?" The first officer looked at her with a smirk. Without even looking back at the screen, he pressed the down arrow on the PADD with his finger. The backlit list began scrolling...and scrolling...and scrolling. Captain Velasquez settled back in her command chair and rubbed her temples. "Never mind, Stephen. I'm sorry I asked."

"Captain, our list of things to install, upgrade, or fix has almost doubled since the last time you asked. Don't you think Starfleet can delay our launch considering everything we have left to do?"

Captain Velasquez continued rubbing her temples. "They won't change their minds, Commander. The only constant in this universe is bureaucracy. To hell with the facts, we have a schedule to keep. They've had some big ceremony planned for months. Whether we're ready or not, this ship makes her debut in Spacedock in 34 days." She pointed her finger for emphasis.

Captain Velasquez laid her head back. "So, this is the epitomy of Starfleet technology...a powerless lump of metal tucked away in a remote shipyard in the Vega system," she thought to herself. "And I came out of retirement for this. Oh, the idea was a good one. With everything that happened with the Borg and the Dominion, not to mention the rumors of a new Romulan warship, it was obvious that something needed to be done to strengthen Federation defenses. There were many who thought the original dreadnaught project had been prematurely abandoned almost a century ago. Captain Jean-Luc Picard's mission log exerpt from Enterprise's first encounter with the Borg was right, "Perhaps we needed a kick in our complacency." That prophetic statement had rung true not only at the Borg battle at Wolf 359, but the Dominion War as well. Now, here we are... after four years of secret meetings, developments, and research, we're just over a month from revealing the most powerful starship in the history of space flight, and I can't even turn on a light."

The sound of beeping and buzzing brought Captain Velasquez out of her daydream. In front of her, she could see that her helmsman had somehow gotten a hold of a tricorder and was playing a game on it. A couple of others on the bridge maneuvered over his shoulder to see using the tricorder's lights for vision. Lydia let out a sigh and slowly shook her head. "Thirty-four days," she thought. "Thirty-four days...and we have to somehow get from the Vega shipyard TO Spacedock, too."


	2. Chapter 2

The pitch black of the engineering room belayed the activity going on. Voices arguing over who forgot this, misplaced that, probably broke something, were rampant. Having had enough, Leiutenant Kelly grabbed the spanner he just tripped on and threw it where he believed the main dilithium chamber to be. As far as he remembered, no one was standing in front of it when the power went out. Right now, he really didn't care. The spanner hit the hollow structure dead on. The clang of the two-story tube reverberated through the entire area. After a number of shrieks, everyone was silent, save for one, dull groaning.

"That's better!" Tom started. He quickly realized that three days without sleep were starting to get to him. He quickly lowered his tone. "Now...there's no sense in anyone blaming anyone for anything. Ensign P'rr's, the sooner you can get a light on, the better."

"Sir...you're going to have to wait a minute. Ensign P'rr's is on the floor. I don't think she liked the banging sound," came another ensign's reply.

"Croiky!" Tom exclaimed. "I'm coming over." He started feeling his way past the various computer stations, tubes, and machinery in the direction of the ensign's groaning...occasionally bumping past a leg or two in the process. He eventually came upon a furry pair of legs on the ground. Assuming they belonged to the Catian ensign, he started feeling around much more carefully. The last thing he needed was for her to think he was interested in her. "P'rr's? Are you alright? I'm really sorry about that."

A paw grabbed his arm. She slowly sat up. "I...will...be...fine," she said slowly and quietly. "My...kind...arrre...verrry...sensitive...to...loud...noises."

He decided to throw caution to the wind and put his arm around her to help her sit. "We'll get you to a medical bed as soon as we get the power back on."

"No...need...Leiutenant," Her voice was starting to pick up a bit. "My equilibrrrium will rrreturrrn in just a moment." Her voice lowered a bit. "I do apprrreciate yourrr concerrrn, though." She patted the hand he had draped around her.

"Um..." Realizing that although no one could see what was happening, everyone could HEAR what was happening, he quickly withdrew his arm. "If you think you can get us a light over here, great. Otherwise, I'll fetch it myself. I think I can manage my way over there."

He could feel her standing up next to him. "No need, Leiutenant. I shall get yourrr light forrr you. And, we shall talk laterrr." As quickly as she stood up, he felt her take off, but she didn't make a sound.

"Ensign?" Tom asked. He felt around for the ensign who, presumably, was there when Ensign P'rr's fell.

"Don't worry, Sir. I didn't hear a thing." The ensign replied quickly.

Tom felt the leg of the ensign near him and slapped it on the knee. "That's not what I meant. Help me up."

Tom felt a hand on his and it pulled him up. "Oh," the ensign responded. 

Just then, a bright, white light illuminated the entire engineering area. Ensign P'rr's was holding it in her hand. "Right," Tom said officially, "Everyone to the equipment locker. Get a hand light. P'rr's, you're with me. We need to head to the main power junction. I have a feeling I know what happened." With cat-like grace and speed, she was next to him within moments. They headed from the giant dilithium reactor across to a large panel with eight large tubes originating from its center. Each of these tubes represented a main power line going from a larger tube behind it to different areas of the ship. Each tube was held in place with an oversized clip. Quickly, he popped the clips, then pulled off the panel. As soon as the panel came off, they could smell burnt circuits. "P'rr's, shine the light down here."

She did as instructed. There, they saw the burned out remains of the main distribution node. "That's what I thought," Tom said, "We've been pulling too much power through this node. It's too small. It was only a matter of time before it blew. Thomas, get me that spanner I threw. I need to get this thing off." He pointed to two other engineers who were switching on hand lights. "You two. Get to cargo bay one. There's a large, gray crate labelled 'Auxiliary Power Installation' near the side door. There's another distribution node in it. It was meant for the auxiliary power center, but since we don't have that yet, we can use it here. Go, go go!" The two ran off, manually opened the sliding doors, then took off down the hall.

"Parrrdon me, Sirrr," P'rr's started, "but won't this happen again?" She looked at him questioningly.

"Well, we'll just have to be careful about what systems we bring online. And we'll have to requisition a bigger distribution node." With the spanner in hand, he expertly popped the node off. It was still smoldering.

His communicator popped. "Bridge to engineering," came the voice of Captain Velasquez.

He tapped his comm badge, "Kelly here, Sir." He replied as he tossed the burnt node to the ground.

"When will I be able to see something other than my helmsman playing Hyperstrike on a tricorder?"

"We've already located the problem and pulled the damaged part. We'll have a replacement within a few minutes." His response was very professional.

"That's good news, Leiutenant." She sounded relieved.

"Captain," he started, "the main distribution node is too small for our needs. It blew. I'll order us a new one, but until it arrives, we'll have to watch how we use power."

"What are your recommendations?" 

"Well, since we only have a third of our normal crew, maybe we can temporarily relocate people to the upper decks, then cut power to the lower decks, save engineering, cargo bay one, and the turbolifts. If we drop the internal temperature by a degree or two, that will also help. I'd also recommend killing the power to the rec room and the holodeck. Our system tests should also be done a chunk at a time."

"All good suggestions," the Captain noted. She almost sounded happy. "They've been noted. We'll start relocating the crew as soon as we can find them. That requires lighting, Leiutenant."

Just then, the two engineers squirted past the open doors with the new node. "You'll have lights in just a minute or so." He motioned them over to him. With a deftness that impressed the Catian, he attached the new node to the grid. With the panel back on, he started reclipping the power tubes. With each new connection, more of the ships systems sprang to life.

"Thank you, Leiutenant! Bridge out." She sounded almost giddy.

"You arrre most imprrressive, forrr a human," Ensign P'rr's said playfully. With her hand still wrapped around the hand light, she popped it off, spun it around, and turned it off.

Tom started getting uncomfortable again, "P'rr's, we need to talk later."

P'rr's smiled, "I know, Leiutenant. Things arrre not as you perrrceive them. I shall explain everrrything. At the end of ourrr shift, I shall meet you at the shipyarrrd messhall.

Confused, all Tom could do was smile and nod. With amazing agility, she slinked over to the supply panel and returned the hand light before going back to her duty station.

Tom scratched his head. He wasn't even thirty yet. He shouldn't have to worry about a subbordinate hitting on him. He momentarily dreamed of being a kid back at his fathers repair shop in Melbourne, when life was simpler. He brushed his long, blonde hair back with his hand. "If only Dad could see me now," he thought to himself. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Captain's log, stardate 56803.8...We are preparing for our fourth attempt at operating under our own power. Our senior engineer assures me that since the proper distribution node was installed, we have been able to push the system to maximum power output safely. He also had to work some magic yesterday during a containment stress test. Thankfully, this shipyard had an abundance of salvage parts he could use. I will make a suplimental entry with the results of our test. I just wish I could get rid of this damned headache. End log entry."

The Captain tapped her comm badge. "Bridge to engineering."

Her badge popped, "Engineering, Kelly here."

Captain Velasquez took a deep breath, "Are we ready to try again, Leiutenant?"

"Just say the word, Captain." came the confident reply.

Velasquez turned to her first officer. "Perhaps now would be a good time to say a prayer."

"I've been doing that all morning, Sir." Kirk replied with a nod.

"Leiutenant. The word is given. Switch us to internal power." She grabbed the arms of her chair tightly.

"Stand by," Kelly's voice stated, "disconnecting shipyard umbilical power." Moments after he said that, the ship went dark again. This time, however, the emergency lights kicked on almost immediately. The bridge was covered in red light.

"Well, that's a good sign," the captain said hopefully. Her first officer looked around somewhat nervously. He believed in the power of prayer, not necessarily the power of untested systems that have been rigged together with gum and wishful thinking.

"Captain, we have a strong signal from the containment system. We're releasing the anti-matter locks to flood the dilithium chamber." In the background, she could hear the engineers count off.

"Lock one disengaged."

"Lock two disengaged."

"Lock three disengaged."

"Lock four disengaged."

"Lock five disengaged!" The entire ship shuddered momentarily with the pulse of energy coursing through the chamber. There was a low hum from behind the walls of the bridge. After several moments, the hum quickly raised in pitch. Suddenly, the bridge was bathed in incandescent light. The computers booted. The sensors began their chirping. Cheers came from all over the ship. The bridge crew stood up and clapped.

"Kelly, you did it!" Captain Velasquez screemed into her badge. "The chief engineer's status of miracle worker has been restored!" She slumped back into her captain's seat and let out a heavy sigh of relief.

From engineering, Leiutenant Kelly could see the blue light of the warp coil pulsating up the chamber. He saw the light feeding the primary tubes that would power the warp nacells. Behind him, the main power distribution center was happily pulsing power to the various parts of the ship. He found himself humming with the low hum of the engines, grinning ear to ear. He and his team had done a lot these past eight days, but nothing matched the sense of accomplishment of having the ship running under her own power...FINALLY.

Ensign P'rr's slinked past Tom with a smile. "I was rrright. You ARRRE imprrressive...forrr a human."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah...I'd like to thank all the little people who made this moment possible." Tom replied for all to hear with a sly smile. With the most pressing challenge behind them, he could afford to be himself. He waved his hands broadly as if accepting an award. The other engineers smiled at his exaggerations. "Seriously, everyone...thank you all for your hard work. Most of you have been at this much longer than I have. For your dedication, and apparent mental imbalance, you have my gratitude." The engineers all laughed and clapped. Although he was giving them credit, most of them realized that Tom was the sole catalyst for almost all the major repairs. "Now, we'll see about getting a real rotating shift started!" The engineers cheered louder.

As P'rr's continued to walk past him, he intentionally bumped her with his hip. She quickly turned to him and mewed coyly. He smiled. As she turned back around, she had to smile as well. Looking back, she was glad she took the opportunity to discuss her species with her senior officer before anything more uncomfortable occurred. As she discovered, within human culture, her species is badly misunderstood. Hopefully, she'll get similiar opportunities to talk with her other crewmates.

Tom watched her walk past and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness," he thought to himself. "Now that I know a little more about her, we can let our hair down a bit more. I'll have to watch myself, though." 


	4. Chapter 4

"It is just ourrr naturrre to be frrriendly in that way," P'rr's started. She sipped her drink. "Catian women choose theirrr mates. It is ourrr way of attrrracting many males so that we may choose the best mate possible."

"You mean you don't even date?" Tom was now genuinely interested.

"Not in the mannerrr humans do, no. We use ourrr frrriendliness to interrrest many males. We get to know them forrr many yearrrs. Eventually, we pick a favorrrite. Then, we arrre mated and become m'sarrr'e; lifemates."

"So..." Tom was almost afraid to ask the question, "are you wanting me to be in the running as a lifemate?"

"Oh, no!" P'rr's responded quickly and a bit loudly. She looked around and smiled at the people now staring at her in the messhall. She lowered her voice, "This is just how Catian females arrre. I mean nothing by it. It means nothing morrre than a human male watching an attrrractive female walk past. The trrruth is, Sirrr, although most Catian females find human males pleasant to look at..." she looked down at her cup and scratched at the table with her claws. What she was about to say could be misconstrued. "...frrrankly...yourrr culturrre is a bit...distasteful to Catians." She measured each word she said.

Tom's expression was of shock, "Really?" Realizing that she truly wasn't interested in him was both a relief, and a mild offense. "Why?"

"Well, Sirrr...once we mate, we mate forrr life. We rrremain mated even if one mate dies. Until we met humans, we had no worrrds like 'divorrrce' or 'separrrate'." She struggled to say the words. "Such a species-wide acceptance of an obvious lack of committment is...well...unsavorrry."

Tom took a sip of his spice tea. "I can see where that would be a problem. You know, P'rr's, humans don't normally enter relationships expecting them to fail," he offerd weakly. This topic was starting to hit a nerve with him. He began thinking of his fianceé back in Australia. Recently, he had been having second thoughts.

"So I have been told," she replied. "Yet, because it is even an option, we considerrr humans like a poisoned flowerrr...look, but do not touch."

"I don't know that I've ever been described that way, P'rr's," Tom responded thoughtfully. He scratched his goatee. This conversation was starting to sting a little, but he didn't want to lead on. After all, it wasn't P'rr's' fault he was getting cold feet.

P'rr's put her hands up in defense. "Please don't misunderrrstand me, Leiutenant. Prrrofessionally, I hold you in high rrregard. You arrre one of the most talented engineerrrs I have everrr met. Perrrsonally, I like you, too. Rrromantically...no."

"Well, as long as I know your...um...friendliness...is harmless, I'm fine with that. After all, I have a fianceé of my own back home, and I don't want to ruin that."

"Yourrr potential mate will rrreceive no competition frrrom me, Leiutenant." P'rr's said with a smile. She took another sip.

"Well, that settles that," Tom started. "Wait...have you been 'friendly' with other crewmen?" He started thinking of all the possible reports he'd either have to file, sign, or clear up.

"Perrrhaps one orrr two. I have not had an opporrrtunity to worrrk with many. I...was hoping you could help explain me, if any situations arrrise with other co-worrrkerrrs." She looked up at Tom with hopeful ice blue, feline eyes.

"No worries, P'rr's. I'll look after you. After all, what are friends for?" Tom gave her a warm smile. Deep down, though, a part of him regretted her romantic disinterest. Perhaps it was his own doubts regarding his engagement, but the thought of having another love interest excited him. His thoughts were a jumble of feelings for his fianceé, Corina, his warnings about fraternizing with subbordinates, P'rr's' disinterest. He began wondering what would happen if he could convince her that he was different. Then, it hit him like a lead ball. The reason why Catians don't get romantically involved with humans was because of the very thought he was having now.

P'rr's put her hands on his. "Thank you, Tom. Yourrr frrriendship means much to me." 


	5. Chapter 5

"Captain's log, stardate: 56817.5... My chief engineer tells me the new cannon driver systems have been successfully fitted into their housings. Starfleet tells me the new computer core won't arrive for at least three more weeks. I guess we'll have to launch with this slapped-together lump of junk we salvaged. Although the primary shield generator is installed, most of its supporting systems haven't arrived yet, so we can't test it. We'll be going for a warp drive test later today. We'll be receiving new crew this evening. Um...oh, yes. The sensor mask generator is installed, but I'm told that until the new computer is installed, we can't test it because it takes too much computing power. End log entry."

The turbolift doors opened to the bridge. Commander Kirk came out, holding his task list PADD. Whistling, he walked over to his seat next to the captain and sat down. He looked at Captain Velasquez and smiled.

"What a pleasant mood you're in, Commander. What's the occasion?" She asked, a genuine smile on her face.

"I'm crossing things off this to-do list left and right. Everything is finally starting to fall into place. And, I'm told our third-in-command arrives today. No more double shifts for me. I haven't been able to watch a single football game all season. I'm looking forward to watching my Broncos." Kirk's grin increased.

"They're three and five so far, Commander. I wouldn't get my hopes up for the post-season," came a reply from behind Commander Kirk. He turned to see Leiutenant Elaine Davies, smiling sympathetically.

"How do you know this?" Stephen asked.

Leiutenant Davies held up her communications earpiece. "I can only listen to crew complaints for so long. Then, I start looking for other stuff to listen to. Vega has a Terran communications relay, so I can get sports scores." She gave a knowing smirk, then turned back to her control panel.

"I knew I applied for the wrong job!" Exclaimed Kirk. There were chuckles from the bridge crew. "You know what, Leiutenant? Even the Bronco's record can't keep me down today. This is going to be a good day, I can feel it."

Lydia smiled. She had to admit...pulling double shifts for the past four months had worn out her sixty-four year old body. She couldn't remember the last time she got to do any rock climbing. Perhaps the months of double shifts were causing her headaches. "I've got to admit, Stephen...the idea of having a normal duty cycle is enticing, but we won't be able to do it right away. We're going to have to break her in slowly. Now, I'm going to be in my ready room finishing out the last of our crew. We don't even have half the crew we need yet." She stood up slowly. "Commander, you have the conn. Let me know when Tom's ready to take us out for a spin."

"Aye, aye," Kirk responded. He watched her walk to her ready room. Although he wasn't about to voice it publically, he had noticed she was slowing down. Something has been putting a strain on her these past few weeks. However, he was just starting to get to know her, so he kept his tongue in check. Privately, he set his mind to talk to her. Then, he let his mind wander to the imminently arriving crew. There were three people on this shuttle who were from his Academy graduating class. He had precious few friends from his years in the Academy, mostly because he was six years older than the average human cadet. Although he hadn't seen them in at least three years, he had kept in contact with them. When Captain Velasquez asked him for his recommendations for certain key areas, their names quickly came to mind. Granted, each one was extremely talented in their respective fields, but... he had to admit, he really missed his friends. In particular, he missed T'Nia. Because she was a Vulcan, she didn't mind the fact he was older. After all, she was in her forties. She has always been an encouragement to him, especially at times when he needed it most. Theirs was a friendship not many people have. He suspected, much to his chagrin, that his great-grandfather had a very similar relationship to another Vulcan, his 'godfather', Ambassador Spock. Ever since Spock discovered the Kirk bloodline did, indeed, continue, he took it upon himself to watch over them. Once Spock had been assigned to Romulan foreign relations, his communications with his second father had gotten more and more scarce, they never stopped. Although part of him had been grateful for Ambassador Spock's involvement, Stephen was conflicted by the notion his friendship with T'Nia was just one more comparison to the great James Kirk he'd have to get past.

The turbolift doors opened. "Who's ready to see what this little girl can do?" Leiutenant Kelly stepped out confidently and rubbed his hands together. He walked gingerly over to the command center in the middle of the bridge. This was actually his first time on the bridge, now that he thought about it. He had served aboard the original galaxy class starship, the USS Galaxy, for four years. Although the Warlord was substantially larger than the Galaxy, the bridge was notably smaller. There were also fewer stations. Yet, a quick scan of the surrounding wallspace revealed his position; the remote engineering station.

"Boy, Tom," started Stephen, "Once you got the power running, you've been moving like a wildfire. You're sure these engines will actually work?" Kirk smiled. He was definately impressed.

"Hey, I've got stuff to do back on Earth. You're darn right these engines'll work!" Leiutenant Kelly tapped the guard rail behind the command center for emphasis.

Stephen nodded. "Then, I guess I better get the captain out here."

"Then, I guess I better get to my seat." Tom replied. He headed over to the remote engineering station and pulled the seat from the wall. 


	6. Chapter 6

Although she had every intention of completing her crew recommendations for the Warlord, the pain in her head was almost unbearable. To cap it off, the muscles in right arm and leg had begun to twitch. She had been having occasional spells where she momentarily couldn't see. Apparently, this wasn't just stress. Yet, her continual tricorder readings kept coming up negative. From a drawer in her desk, she pulled out more pain relievers and muscle relaxers she had confiscated from sick bay. They were so close to making real progress, she couldn't afford to stop now. Besides, all she'd have to do is hang on until the doctor arrived this afternoon. Then, he'd figure out what was wrong and fix everything. She took the pills, then laid her head down on the desk.

Her comm badge popped. "Bridge to Captain Velasquez."

She sat up and pressed her comm badge. "Velasquez here. Are we ready?" Her voice sounded tired.

"Yes, Sir. Our chief engineer assures me Warlord is ready to fly."

"Excellent. Stephen, get thrusters to station-keeping. Have the docking clamps removed...you know. Prepare us for departure. I'll be out in just a moment. Velasquez out." She rubbed her temples, trying to regain her composure and hoping the medicine would take effect soon. 


	7. Chapter 7

Kirk was momentarily concerned, but dared not show it. He motioned to his helmsman. "Ensign Bristol, thrusters to station-keeping. Stand by to clear all moorings." He then turned to his communications officer. "Leiutenant Davies, get me the dockmaster."

"Aye, aye, Commander," Davies responded. Her fingers glided over the communications controls with practiced ease. "The dockmaster is standing by, Sir."

"Dockmaster, this is Warlord," Commander Kirk stated officially. "Requesting permission to depart." He nodded to the chief engineer. Tom nodded back with a wink. Even though he had taken ships out of docking stations at least a dozen times before, this one was actually getting exciting.

"Warlord, this is the dockmaster," came a disembodied voice over the bridge speakers. "Stand by to depart. We will retract the walkways and docking clamps momentarily." There was a brief pause. "Should we have the shipyard tug standing by just in case?" The dockmaster unsuccessfully stifled a chuckle.

You know," Tom started with a smirk, "we'll never get away from Cavelli fast enough." He shook his head.

Captain Velasquez appeared from behind the sliding door to her ready room. With a somewhat pained smile, she headed to her chair.

Stephen continued talking into the air, "Very funny, Cavelli. No, a tugship won't be necessary. Oh, and don't wait up. Once she clears her first speed test, we may be celebrating for awhile."

"If you overgrown children are through posturing, can we get on with this?" Captain Velasquez asked. She smiled and slowly shook her head.

The dockmaster came back on. "All docking systems are cleared. You're cleared for departure. Good luck, you guys. Dockmaster out."

"Thank you, Commander," the captain said with a smile. "I'll take the conn now."

"Aye, aye."

Lydia stood from her seat. Of all the moments she has enjoyed in Starfleet, addressing her crew for the first time was her favorite. She pushed her pain aside and gave a quick thought as to what to say. "Leiutenant Davies, put me on shipwide speakers." With a few keystrokes, Elaine nodded in compliance. "Ladies and gentlemen of the starship Warlord. We are about to make for our first test flight. We have all put in long arduous hours in preparation of this moment. Although there is much more left before this vessel is truly ready for service, take a moment now, if your position will allow it, to look out a window and savor this moment. Once this vessel leaves the dock, we are no longer construction teams with projects, we are a crew. That is all." The bridge crew took a moment to look at each other, smiling. With the departure of this starship, a new era in Starfleet would begin and the Dreadnaught Mark II would no longer be a concept, but a reality. The most advanced spacecraft in the history of the Alpha Quadrant would finally take its place in the heavens.

Captain Velasquez took a deep breath. Once she knew the shipwide communications had ended, she sat back down and faced her helmsman. "Helm, thrusters down. Clear our moorings."

Ensign Bristol spun around in his chair and glided it into his navigation panel. "Aye, aye, Captain," the young ensign announced with a Cockney accent. Tyler Bristol barely looked at the panel as he issued the commands to the ship. From the forward viewscreen, they could see two of the many spider-like legs of the giant docking structure surrounding the ship. Slowly, the legs seemed to rise up over the ship until they were completely gone from view. "Moorings, cleared, Sir." His robotic reply belayed his excitement. This was, after all, his first assignment as principle helmsman. Although he had taken many ships out of a docking station in a simulator, he had never taken one out for REAL. Unknown to the rest of the bridge crew, he had spent the last several days on the holodeck simulating this exact same maneuver. He had gotten quite adept at getting the ship out of her moorings just in time to single-handedly defeat a number of Romulan warships after the rest of the bridge crew had met with an umtimely demise. To his relief, he neither rammed one of the docking arms, as he did the first time he tried it, nor did he have to confront Romulan warbirds.

"Ensign, thrusters ahead to 300 kph until we have cleared the shipyard." The captain was all business now. Any hints of pain, discomfort, or fatigue seemed to have left her.

"Forward thrusters ahead 300 kph, aye." the ensign replied. The downward motion ceased. Slowly, the viewscreen showed images of various wreakages passing to the left, to the right, above, and below. There was a very somber feel to the bridge crew as they realized the majority of these hulks were the casualties of the Dominion War. It was because of that war the final hurdles to the Dreadnaught II project were finally cleared. The bridge was silent as they each paid homage to the thousands of crewmen who made the ultimate sacrifice.

"How does she handle, Ensign?" The captain asked.

"She's sluggish, Sir." Bristol answered, somewhat dismayed. "It's taking forever to get her to respond."

The captain looked a little concerned. She turned back to her engineer. "What's the story with that, Kelly?"

Leiutenant Kelly shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Captain. Part of it is because the maneuvering thrusters are having a stink of a time pushing this kind of mass. The one thing Starfleet hasn't improved on much is thurster tech. Mostly, though, the delay is because the computer is too small. It's just not powerful enough to do all the thinking necessary to keep this ship running right. I've had to shut down some systems in order to free up enough processing power for us to move. I...ah... wrote that in the report I handed you last week, Sir."

"I remember now, Leiutenant. Thank you for reminding me." She turned back to her helmsman. "For now, Ensign, I guess you'll just have to tough it out. Once the new computer is installed, things should improve."

"It's okay, Sir. I can manage. Actually, we're just about clear of the shipyard." Bristol still sounded hopeful and upbeat.

"Great. Once we're clear, let's give these impulse engines a test. Take us to one half impulse power, Ensign." She nodded.

"What heading, Sir?" He asked.

"I don't really care, Ensign. Just point us in a direction that doesn't send us into something bigger than we are." She winked at him.

"Aye, aye, Captain." After a quick glance at the navigation computer, he plotted his course. "Heading 187 mark 033 at one half impulse aye." The acceleration was extremely smooth.

Velasquez turned to her first officer. "Commander, aft view."

"Aft view, aye." He pressed a button on his arm-mounted console. The viewscreen scene changed to show the Vega shipyard falling behind them quickly. "Now that's a pretty sight." He remarked.

"I agree, Commander." Velasquez stated. She turned to Tom. "Leiutenant Kelly, how are the impulse engines looking?"

Tom already had the engine readouts on his screen. The were all a bright green. "Impulse engines are working perfectly, Captain. Care to take her up a notch?"

"Absolutely. Ensign Bristol, increase speed to full impulse." Captain Velasquez said with a nod.

"Aye, aye, Captain. Full impulse." He slid his fingers over the impulse engine output bars all the way to the top. After a few seconds, the ship began to respond. "Point six, point seven, point eight, point nine...full. Captain, we're at full impulse power." 

The bridge crew started to notice some minor vibration. Captain Velasquez turned back around to see Tom and his engineering station. A couple of the formerly green status bars were now yellow. "Tom, what's with the shaking?"

"The engines are starting to run a little hot." He tapped a few keys on his console, looked at some more readouts, then turned to the captain. "I think it's the computer. It's taking the computer awhile to calculate the coolant mix and get it into the engines."

The shaking began to worsen as the yellow status bars started turning red. "Do you think this will correct itself, or should we reduce speed?" Velasquez asked, some concern in her voice.

Almost on queue, the status bars lowered back down to their peaceful, green color and the shaking stopped. "That won't be necessary, Captain." Tom replied with a smile. "I think the computer finally caught up with us."

"You're confident that problem will go away with the new computer core?" Velasquez asked. She knew the answer, she just wanted it on the record.

"Yeah, it should. Actually, a lot of problems will get fixed once that baby's put in."

"Do you see any problems with proceding to our warp drive tests?"

"No worries, but I think we should take the impulse engines offline. I don't think we want the computer to try handling both propulsion systems at once."

"Noted," She turned back to the front. "Alright, then. Ensign continue at full impulse until we're out of the inner system. Then, we'll move to our warp test." She turned to face her first officer. The headache was back again... the pain relievers were having less and less of an effect for a shorter period of time. "Commander, you have the conn. I'm heading back to my ready room to finish my crew recommendations."

"Yes, Sir." Kirk replied in military fashion. He watched her walk into her ready room.

"Commander," Tom started, "We've got over an hour before we're out of the system. Would you mind if I head below and grab a bite to eat? When the ship started shaking, I thought it was my stomach rumbling." He rubbed his belly.

Everything seemed to be running fairly smoothly, Kirk thought. "Go for it. I'll need you back up here in an hour, though."

Tom stood up and pushed his seat back into the wall. "I'll be here." He let out a sigh. "Mmmm...I've been dreaming of a nice, thick burger with mushrooms and swiss cheese since yesterday.

As the turbolift doors slid shut with a hiss behind Tom, Stephen thought, "Oh, great...now I'm getting hungry." 


	8. Chapter 8

Tom had decided to take a PADD with him to the galley and catch up on some reading while he ate. His mostly-eaten burger and fries were cold and his tea was warm, but he didn't care. He was a really big fan of fantasy books, and this one was just getting good. There were only a few other crew in the galley, so it was pretty quiet. Of course, with only 50 of the 280 crewmembers aboard, it was going to be quiet no matter what.

His PADD started beeping at him. He continued reading. He was almost through with this chapter and the dragon had just woken up. His PADD started beeping louder. A reminder flashed at him in the upper right corner. Tom remembered putting a reminder on the PADD to let him know when his hour was up. Unfortunately for him, it was. He let out a growl that aroused the other diners. "Sorry." He said, meekly. Tom shoved his PADD under his arm and gathered up his food tray. He stuck the food tray into the processor and took the burger off. "Computer; dispose." The tray, with all it held, disappeared. With PADD in one hand and a mostly eaten burger in the other, he headed to the bridge.

Tom stepped into the turbolift. "Bridge," he said flatly. It instantly began its horizontal, then vertical, then horizontal movements. His mind started wandering off to his book. Before he knew it, his imagination had put him in the book as the lead character. Suddently, a certain Catian female appeared as the books love interest. For some reason, the dragon had his fianceé's head. He abruptly snapped to reality with that thought as the turbolift doors opened. 


	9. Chapter 9

"Perfect timing, Leiutenant," Captain Velasquez remarked as Tom stepped out of the turbolift.

"I wouldn't have missed this for the world," Tom replied with a smile. He calmly walked to his remote engineering station and sat down.

"Captain," Ensign Bristol started, "We've got another three minutes before we're officially beyond the inner boundary of the Vega system, but we're already clear of stellar objects. We could go to warp at any time."

"I like your thinking, Tyler. First, though, I need you to perform a thorough long-range scan of the area we're going to. As long as we're in the Vega system, we're protected. Once we leave, we're liable to run into traffic. Remember, we want to keep this ship a secret for now."

"Yes, Sir..." Bristol raised an eyebrow, wondering why he got the job of performing a long range scan, when that ability wasn't on his console. Another question dawned on him. "Where are we going, Sir?"

"Good question," Velasquez replied. "Just take the heading 3-4-9 mark 1-1-0. We'll only go a couple of light years. Then we'll turn around and head back. Remember, we need all-stop from the impulse engines. They'll need to be powered down in order to start the warp drives." Her right leg started twitching ever so slightly. She covered it up by crossing her legs and letting it kick back and forth.

"Understood, Sir. Full-stop aye." He moved his hands over the engine controls and initiated the counter-thrust sequence. That would power down the impulse engines and slow their momentum to a complete stop.

Commander Kirk got up from his 2nd officer's seat and moved to the tactical console. "I'll take care of the scan, Tyler." He said.

"Thank you, Sir." Ensign Bristol replied as he continued punching orders into his own console.

Realizing she had inadvertently assigned two different duties to the young ensign. "Good idea, Commander," she said, trying to rescue herself. There was no getting around it. The continual medications and lack of sleep were beginning to affect her. Even worse was the fact the medications were losing their potentcy. She was going to have to tell her second in command... and soon. She could tell he was suspecting something.

"Captain, we're at all-stop...finally." Bristol stated with a smirk.

"Captain, I'm reading an all clear on our flight path," Stephen added.

"All right then. Ensign Bristol, alter course to heading 3-4-9 mark 1-1-0, speed warp one."

"Setting course, heading 3-4-9 mark 1-1-0 speed warp one, aye." Tyler replied in standard, military fashion.

"Engage." the captain ordered. A few seconds later, the distant stars began to swirl around the viewscreen as the great vessel re-alligned itself to the new course heading. All at once, the pinpoints of light began to elongate into lines of brilliant reds, blues, whites, and oranges. With a flash, the stars were back to their original shapes, but flying to the edges of the screen.

"Confirmed, Captain," Ensign Bristol said. "We are at warp one." The bridge crew began to cheer.

The captain raised her hands to silence the bridge crew for a moment. She turned to her chief engineer. "Tom, how are the engines?"

Tom was already looking at the readouts. "Everything's green, Captain."

"Excellent. Commander, is our traffic lane still clear?"

"As far as the sensor can see, Captain."

"Okay, let's kick it up a notch. Ensign, increase speed to warp three."

"Speed to warp three, aye." With a few motions of his hand, the vessel obeyed. It took several seconds for the engines to increase their output, but they did. Again, the ship began to shudder.

The captain turned back to her engineer. "The computer again?" She looked as the temperature guages for the engines peaked into yellow again.

"Pretty sure of it, yeah. Let's give it a sec." This time, no one looked overly concerned. Just as last time, the temperature went back down to normal levels and the shuddering stopped. "So, the latency problem isn't just for the impulse engines, but the warp engines, too. I bet if we gradually increased speed, the computer could keep up."

"Well," Velasquez responded, "we'll hope there's no need to escape anywhere quickly for the next three weeks." She shrugged her shoulders. "Still, all in all, I'd say this was a very successful series of tests. I finally feel like we're in a starship. My congratulations to everyone. Leiutenant Kelly, please relay my gratitude to your crew as well."

"I will do that, Sir... and thank you." He bowed his head. While he tried to be professional about his thanks, deep down, he wanted to jump up and down and scream. In all his years in Starfleet, this moment was one of his happiest.

Leiutenant Davies motioned to the captain. "Sir, I have a message from the Vega shipyard. Our next group of crewmembers have arrived early. They've already been offloaded to the shuttles. They'll be at the station in ninety minutes."

"I guess we should go and greet them. Thank you, Leiutenant. Ensign Bristol, reverse course and take us back to the shipyards." She said with a rather pained smile. The pain relievers were already starting to wear off, but she dared not take any more yet.

"Bringing her about, Captain. Reverse course to the Vega shipyards, warp three. Course laid in, Sir." Ensign Bristol proudly announced.

"Engage." She said simply. With absolutely no sense of movement or turning, the vessel doubled back on its course and headed back. After a long sigh, she turned to Commander Kirk. "Commander, this old body could use a nap. I'm heading to my quarters. We're a good two hours from docking, so I think I'll take advantage of that. You have the conn. Call me just before we dock, please." Her smile seemed warm and pleasant, but a little forced.

"Yes, Sir. Will do. Enjoy your rest." His voice slowed and lowered. "You've earned it."

She stood up and put her hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Commander. We all have." With that, she slowly headed for the turbolift.

Tom and Stephen shared concerned faces as the sliding doors of the turbolift closed behind her, but said nothing. 


	10. Chapter 10

Although he could tolerate the size of a starship, these ridiculous shuttles were entirely too confining, Doctor Dorrin thought. "Weren't these shuttles only supposed to hold six people?" He thought. He counted at least a dozen, "and that's if you don't count the big, glass spider-thing twice." IT had been intimidatingly silent in contrast to the other occupants. Everyone knew why they were here, of course. But, no one had ever seen the ship, nor did anyone have any specifications. So, theories were exchanged by one and all...its size, weapon compliment, speed, power, personnel...everything was debated. "Isn't all this talk taking up what precious air we have in this giant coffin?" He thought.

"Crewman...crewman!" the doctor pushed and shoved past everyone to the pilot. "How much oxygen do we have on this thing? Should we be conserving our air supply?" He tried not to sound overly worried, but it wasn't working.

The pilot sounded reassuring. "Dr. Dorrin, we have a recirculating environmental system. We also have supplimentary oxygen tanks injecting fresh oxygen all the time. We have plenty of air for the trip to the station."

The doctor was obviously not quite convinced. "And if one or more of those tanks were punctured, then where would we be? By the way, my name is Doctor Rass. Dorrin is my first name."

"My apologies, Dr. Rass." The pilot offered. "I got confused by the crew roster. I thought you were listed as Rass Dorrin."

"I'm Bajoran, crewman. We list our last names first. Anyway, what about punctures?"

"Doctor, even if the oxygen tanks ruptured, there's enough air in the cabin already to get us safely to the station. We're perfectly safe. Now, please return to your seat. We'll be at the station in less than ninety minutes." The pilot turned back around to his controls. Out of the doctor's eyesight, he rolled his eyes.

Still slightly upset, Dorrin weaved his way back to his spot. "No one ever said anything about a shuttle before," he mumbled. "One would have thought that little detail would have come up during one of the meetings, but noooo." As he neared his original seat, he once again saw the near-human sized semi-transparant spider near the rear of the shuttle. The thing looked downright menacing. He was sure it was a security guard or something. Bajor had spiders, too...big ones...but nothing like that. It gave him the creeps.

He was pleasantly surprised to see a thin Vulcan woman with uncharacteristically long, brown hair between him and the spider, though. He hadn't noticed her before. She considered him with a typical calm face and raised eyebrow. "Greetings, Doctor," she said flatly.

Trying to regain his composure, he sat back down and did the best he could to smile. "Well, hello, Leiutenant Commander. I'm Doctor Rass Dorrin. Peace and long life." He made his right hand into the Vulcan greeting sign, a 'v' shape with the pointer and middle finger forming one half and his ring and little finger making the other half.

Her face seemed to soften a bit. She returned the gesture. "Live long and prosper. I am T'Nia, the ships tactical officer. There are not many outside of Vulcan who can perform our greeting gesture. Thank you."

"Well, I'm not only a physician, I'm a surgeon. Nimble hands come with the territory." He replied with a smile and trying to sound charming. Secretly, he was wanting to claw his way out of the shuttle.

"I see," she stated. "Well, it was agreeable to meet you, Doctor. I look forward to journeying with you on our new assignment." She turned and began heading towards the spider creature.

Dorrin stopped her short. "Are you planning on talking to that thing?" He asked, his voice and eyebrows raised.

"Doctor," she started slowly, "I graduated from the Academy with 'that thing'. We are friends. I'm surprised, Doctor. I wouldn't have thought you to be xenophobic."

"Oh, I'm not xenophobic," he defended quickly. He raised his hands for emphasis. "It's just...I don't know... I guess I'm just a little edgy around things with more limbs than me." He offered a weak smile to downplay the situation. She was right, of course. He didn't have any problems associating with other humanoid lifeforms. However, the more 'alien' the alien was, the more uncomfortable he became. Between that and his claustrophobia, he made a lousy resistance fighter during the Cardassian War. "I didn't mean any offense." So much for making a good first impression.

T'Nia simply responded, "Hmmm," and raised an eyebrow. She then turned back to the spider. 


	11. Chapter 11

"It is most agreeable to see you again, Box," T'Nia stated flatly as she approached the spider-like Hamalki. She greeted him with the typical Vulcan hand gesture.

The Hamalki raised a pointed appendage. It reshaped into the form of a V. She could hear the giant spider fill up an airsack in preparation to speak. "Hhhhhlive long and prosper, T'Nia. I have missed seeing you." 

The escaping air, pushing through his makeshift vocal chords was barely above a whisper, but T'Nia was listening. She had spent many years talking to him. "As I recall, you spent the past couple of years aboard the USS Ballista. Did you enjoy it?"

He formed another airsack. This one took awhile to inflate, so she knew he had a lot to say. "Hhhhhhoh, yes. Almost everyone was wonderful. It took awhile for the bipeds to get accustomed to me, but once we got to know each other, it was like another family." He bent his large, fanged mouth into a toothy grin.

"Such relationships are quite important, Box. It is good you established them." Her own mind wandered back to her previous assignment aboard the USS Intrepid II, a starship crewed soley by Vulcans. It was comfortable to be in the continual company of fellow Vulcans, yet it wasn't what she had hoped. It didn't take long for her to realize she had missed the company of irrational, emotional humans. Her great epiphany was that, although she was a creature of logic and would forever remain that way, she actually preferred the company of humans. Her mind quickly snapped back to the conversation at hand. "You must have been quite disappointed when the Ballista was decommissioned."

"Hhhhhhit was quite a blow, yes. However, she was over 20 years old. My entire shift was consumed with making repairs. My task list was ever-changing, but it never dwindled in length. Her time had come, and I have fond memories of my crewmates." His bulbous head hung down.

"I am curious, Box. Your species is generally quite pacificial. What made you decide to serve aboard a warship?" She sat down to listen to him speak.

"Hhhhhthat answer should be obvious, T'Nia." His head raised and another smile beamed. "You, Tony, and Stephen are the best friends I ever had. You have all been like family to me. I could never pass up an opportunity to be with you again." 

T'Nia bowed her head. She was sincerely touched. "I am honored, Box. This shall be an acceptable position for me as well. I look forward to renewing our friendship and serving with you."

Box tilted his head. His eight eyes stared at her for several moments. "Hhhhhhhi like your hair long like that, T'Nia. However, it is a very human hairstyle."

She absently ran her fingers through her hair. "Thank you, Box. It was not very popular aboard the Intrepid. Such long hair was not 'logical'."

The giant spider shook and made a noise reminiscent of chimes. She recognized it immediately as his way of laughing.

"Am I interrupting anything?" The voice came from behind T'Nia. She turned to see the familiar voice.

"Not at all, Doctor," T'Nia replied. With her face turned away from Box, she raised an eyebrow to the doctor.

Understanding her subtle question, he smiled broadly and gave her a quick wink, "Well, I thought I'd come over and introduce myself to my new crewmate. After all, we're liable to be together for quite some time. We should at least try to get to know each other, shouldn't we?" His voice sounded almost sincere.

His eyes betrayed him a bit, though. T'Nia could tell this was hard for him. "Very true, Doctor," she replied, her facial expression soft again, "Doctor Rass Dorrin, this is...well...Leiutenant Box."

The doctor slowly extended his hand to the large, crystalline spider. "Leiutenant Box, it's a pleasure."

The Hamalki extended one of his twelve limbs to the doctor. The mandible reformed to include three digits. He took the doctor's hand. "Hhhhhthe pleasure is mine, Doctor Rass." 

The feeling wasn't at all what the doctor was expecting. Each digit, though easily twice as large as a human finger, was quite gentle. The skin, though soft, and obviously mallible, in appearance, was quite firm. The smiling mouth revealed row after row of rather long, sharp teeth, with a pair of pincers just inside. It then dawned on him, the spider wasn't talking through his mouth. The voice was coming out his left side somewhere. Upon closer look, the crystalling body was semi-transparent. The doctor could, with some focus, see a sack within the abdomen that contained his vital organs. Almost immediately, his initial feeling of discomfort left him. A doctor's curiosity filled him in its place.

The doctor sat down next to the great spider. "Please forgive me for staring, but your species fascinates me. You are actually the first I have met. Would you mind if I asked you some questions?"

Once again, the spider shook and made a noise like the ringing of chimes. Its toothy maw elongated into a large smile. From inside the spider, the doctor could hear air being sucked in. "Hhhhhhnot at all, Doctor. It would please me greatly."

The doctor began a liteny of questions. He had completely forgotten he was in a cramped, over-crowded, flying coffin. Seated next to him, T'Nia did her best not to smile. 


	12. Chapter 12

The new group of crewmates had just completed their tour of the secretive Vega shipyards. While the station was relatively small, greater secrets lay just a few hundred meters away, and several hundred meters underground. While the station could barely house 150, the research and construction facility kept over 2,000 in luxury. This was the main reason why there were always at least four starships patrolling this area at all times. While touring, they did get to see some of the new computer system, still in development. Apparently, part of the core was being developed elsewhere, so the final product wouldn't be ready for almost three weeks. All in all, the facility was impressive and if the blueprints were to be believed, this new starship would truly earn the title 'Dreadnaught'.

The three friends, T'Nia, Box, and Tony Moreaux, were now joined by a new friend, Doctor Rass Dorrin, whom Tony had already nicknamed 'Raz'. Although the doctor wasn't particularly fond of the nickname, he accepted it in stride. 

As the four walked down the corridor, Tony peeked out the porthole. In the distance, he could see the hills of the planet despite the storm. He could also see hundreds of Vega's indigenous inhabitants. Although zoologists had given them an official name, they had been nicknamed 'scorpepedes', since they looked roughly like dog-sized scorpions with sixteen legs. They were camped all around the station. Tony whistled. "Would you look at those things? They're like something out of an old-style horror movie. I talked with one of the engineers here. He said the only reason why they don't chew the material is because they coated everything in boromite. I guess they don't like the taste. I bet those things are mean."

"Hhhhhhi bet they taste good with butter," Box replied with a large, toothy grin.

Tony laughed, shook his head and patted his friend on top of his abdomen. "Box, you are one sick spider." The Hamalki shook and chimed in reply.

As Tony and Box continued walking on towards the common room, T'Nia fell back with the doctor as he walked down the corridor. "Doctor, I must say you impressed me in the shuttle." She said quietly. She almost smiled.

"Thanks," he replied humbly. That was, perhaps, the first time she had heard something non-self inflating come from his mouth. "Honestly, I don't know why I get uncomfortable around non-humanoid aliens. Box is an incredible individual. His entire species is fascinating. Part of me would love to visit Hamal, but I know I wouldn't be able to handle being that badly outnumbered." He hung his head a bit.

"Well, not to persuade you one way or the other, Doctor," T'Nia replied. She paced her words. "There are many Federation embassies on Hamal. You would most certainly be welcome at one of them and you would be surrounded by mostly humanoids."

Doctor Rass shrugged his shoulders. "Hmmm...well, perhaps I will someday. Until then, I will be content to speak with Box. Thanks again, T'Nia."

"You are most welcome, Doctor." T'Nia nodded. "However I simply wanted to inform you that your willingness to go beyond your comfort level was noticed...and appreciated. There will, no doubt, be those aboard who will be uncomfortable around him. It will please him greatly to know you won't be one of them."

They stopped once they reached the common room. The other crewmen had suddenly stopped their discussions. Words were replaced with 'Oooo' and 'Ahhh' as well as a few explitives from who T'Nia often referred to as 'less cultured' crewmembers. They were all staring at a large viewscreen, displaying the docking station in orbit above Vega. As the two turned to look as well, the doctor gasped. T'Nia raised an eyebrow.

Slowly, silently gliding underneath a giant, spider-like docking facility was the largest vessel anyone had ever seen. It was a monstrous behemoth, nearly twice the size of the second largest vessel in the fleet. Where a Galaxy class starship would fit snuggly within the dock, the engines of this ship were almost completely outside. There were special extensions built onto the downward facing arms to allow easier access to the lower levels. The main saucer section was almost the size of the vessels most of these crew had served aboard. There was a short neck to the rear of the large saucer. The superstructure body came immediately below and was solid. Four giant appendages protruded from the body via sleek arms, one above, one immediately below, and two angled upwards on either side. The lower arm was much shorter than the other three. Ring after ring of red lined the top and bottom of the saucer section. Those were obviously phaser arrays. It was impossible to guess how many actual emitters were in each array, but an easy guess was 'several'. Along the starboard side of the superstructure, the side the crew could see, was a large tube, running almost its entire length. No one knew what that was for, but presumably, there was another one on the other side. As the ship slowly rose into the docking arms, they could see the letters 'NX 8000' and 'U.S.S. Warlord' written on the forward underside of the saucer.

"By the prophets," Doctor Rass finally exclaimed. "I've never seen anything like it." He slowly shook his head.

Tony made his way over to his friends. "I saw the design specs. A bunch of this ship is automated. Without that computer, I bet they can barely turn on a light."

T'Nia put in her opinion as well. "This is truly the Federations first warship. I wonder if the tubes running down the hull are part of the neutron cannon technology."

"Hhhhhhi hope the parts are waranteed." Box added with a large, toothy grin. 


	13. Chapter 13

In one shot, all 34 crewmembers were brought aboard Warlord using the cargo transporter. Captain Velasquez stood behind the transporter controls with a smile. Only Commander Kirk had seen her limp to the console. When he inquired of the limp, she merely said is wasn't any major, but they'd discuss it later. As she spoke, he noticed her leaning quite heaviliy on the console. Whatever this was, it was certainly more than she was leading on. His worries eased somewhat as he noticed his Academy friends all clumped together near the front of the group. He smiled and waved. Box and Tony waved back. T'Nia merely nodded. Stephen already knew that was about as much of an outburst as he was going to get from her.

"Welcome aboard the Warlord, everyone." She started with a smile. "I am Captain Lydia Velasquez. Although I intend to meet with each of you personally, I wanted to make certain you knew who I was in case you have any questions or problems." As she spoke, the back door of the cargo bay opened. A number of senior crew members ushered themselves in. Velasquez turned briefly to confirm who had entered. "Excellent. I have your duty assignments with me." With that, she held up a PADD full of names and descriptions. Kirk noticed her hand was shaking. "As I read your name, I'll let you know who your senior officer is." She turned to the recent additions to her speech. "Ladies and gentlemen, as I read your names, would you please raise your hands so your people know who you are?" They each nodded compliance. "Bridge officers will remain with Commander Kirk, who is to my right." On queue, Stephen raised his hand. "These people also have your temporary quarters assignments." 

She rattled off the names and, one by one, they each went to their superiors. Only T'Nia and the doctor remained on the cargo transporter pad. "T'Nia, obviously you'll go with Commander Kirk to the bridge. Commander, would also be so kind as to show the doctor his sick bay and living quarters?"

"Yes, Sir." Stephen replied smartly. The doctor and T'Nia headed towards Stephen.

"Thank you." Captain Velasquez's voice raised. "Everyone, as you'll see, we still have quite a bit of work left to do before this ship is truly ready for deployment. However, there have been numerous advances just in the past week due to the talent and hard work of the people whom you report to. I am honored to include you in this list of talented and hard working group. With the deployment of this starship, the Federation will be a safer place. You will have a hand in that. Take pride in who you work with. Take pride in who you report to. Most of all, take pride in the ship you serve. If we take care of her, she'll always get us home. Dismissed." With various looks of awe and bewilderment, the new, young crewmembers departed.

Kirk, T'Nia, and the doctor remained for a moment. "Will you be needing anything else, Captain?" Kirk asked. His voice was calm, but his eyes looked worried.

Velasquez saw the geniune concern. Even though she was in a considerable amount of pain, and starting to lose muscle control again, she felt she needed to be strong. "Negative, Commander. However..." she thought for a moment. "Doctor, once you get settled in, let me know. We have a few issues to discuss. No hurry."

"Certainly, Captain," the doctor nodded. With that, the three departed.

Once the door had safely closed, Velasquez took her right hand off the console. It began shaking wildly. In an attempt to steady herself, her right leg gave out and she fell to the ground...hard. She had to close her eyes. The fall not only hurt her hip, it made her head worse. Reaching into her pocket with her left hand, she pulled out another pain reliever and muscle relaxer. They had only worked for about ten minutes apiece. She began swearing in Spanish as she took the pills. She laid on the floor, waiting for the medicine to kick in. Thankfully, the doctor was here. He should be able to figure out what was wrong. Once the pain and spasms subsided, she quickly got up and went to her quarters. Hopefully, the doctor wouldn't be long contacting her. She hoped her 'don't panic the others' philosophy didn't come back to haunt her. 


	14. Chapter 14

Kirk, T'Nia, and Rass walked down the narrow corridor to the turbolift. With a smile, Kirk turned to T'Nia. "Leiutenant Commander, it is truly acceptable to see you again."

She raised an eyebrow. "Your sentiment is appreciated, Commander. it is agreeable to see you as well."

The doctor observed them both. "I presume the two of you have a history together, right?" He asked with a smirk.

Kirk turned to Rass and smiled. He knew what Rass was trying to ask. "Well, yes and no. We graduated from the Academy together. We're very good friends."

Doctor Rass realized Kirk had misunderstood his line of questioning. Dorrin was simply trying to show off his observational skills. He had to admit, T'Nia wasn't unattractive to look at, but she wasn't Bajoran... and there was just something about Bajoran women. Perhaps it was the fire in their spirits, or their stubbornness...maybe it was just those really cute wrinkles above their noses. "Now, now, Commander," he said with an all-understanding tone, "don't read too much into that statement. But...I was right." Kirk merely shook his head slowly while T'Nia raised an eyebrow, apparently oblivious to what was 'not' being said. She decided to let it go. If it was important, Stephen would tell her later.

The doctor continued to look around. "This ship is deceptive, Commander. From the outside, it would seem this ship is enormous. From in here, it doesn't seem much larger than the shuttle we were in." 

"Yes, it is," Kirk replied. "Most of the ship is taken up with either automated systems, redundant systems, or armor. It actually takes less than 300 people to fully man this vessel for all three duty shifts."

"Amazing," the doctor answered rhetorically. "You know...it concerns me. For as much as we hate the Borg for what they are, the more like them we are becoming." He concluded with a distant look in his eye.

"With one big exception, doctor," Kirk responded quickly. "For as advanced as our computer systems become, they're still nothing more than tools. They service us."

The doctor shrugged. "I'd be willing to be that's how the Borg started, too." That made Kirk think.

They came up on a door. Just ahead to the left was a door with the obvious snake on a staff symbol of medicine. It indicated the sickbay. "Doctor," Kirk started. He motioned to the door just to the right. "This is your temporary quarters. We're having to power down environmental controls on certain decks to free up computer core resources for more important functions. It'll all get cleared up once the new computer core arrives. In the meantime, you probably figured out where your office is. Um..." Stephen struggled to find the right words. "the sickbay may not be in exactly the condition you'd like. We've had some really critical issues to deal with, so...the sickbay didn't rank very high on the priority list. I do know that some of it got set up about a month ago due to some injuries. The EMH works, I know that."

The doctor's eyes widened. "There's an EMH in there? I really don't like those."

Kirk looked genuinely confused. "I thought doctors loved having an assistant like that. What's wrong with it?"

"Well, to be honest, Commander...I know the person whom they're modelled after. He's an arrogant, obnoxious, little man." Barrin shook his head. "And his EMH replica shares his personality."

T'Nia raised an eyebrow again. That personality closely fit another doctor she met recently.

Kirk smirked and shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, doc. New Starfleet regs say we have to have one, in case something happens to you. Maybe they'll let you tinker with his personality matrix."

"Perhaps." The doctor let out a loud sigh. "Well, I guess I'll look at my office first. The living quarters don't concern me much. As long as it has a bed and a toilet, I'm happy. Thank you, Commander. It was nice meeting you."

"Same here, doc. If you need anything, give me a beep. Oh! Don't forget to contact the captain once you have everything squared away in there."

"Don't worry, I will. Thanks again." He headed for the frosted glass double-doors. T'Nia and Kirk walked past him as the doctor went inside.

Kirk turned to T'Nia. "I don't think the doctor's first reaction to his new work area will be a pleasant one." He smirked.

"Oh?" replied T'Nia as she cocked her head. It didn't take long for Stephen's predictions to come true.

"Ahhh!" the doctor's voice screamed from behind the doors. "Everything's still wrapped! I don't even have a computer!"

"An interesting complaint," T'Nia said, "coming from a person worried about having too much technology." 


	15. Chapter 15

The doctor surved his office in complete shock. The desk was the only thing in its proper place. As far as the eye could see, there were boxes upon boxes marked 'Medical Supplies'. As he slowly weaved his way between his desk and the boxes, he poked his head into the room to his left. It was a large room and mostly bare, save for the medical beds piled into the far corner. All but two were still wrapped. Apparently, these other two had been used recently. They were plugged into the wall and life signs monitors plugged in. Regretfully, all the other life signs monitors were also in a pile in another corner, with no apparent means of hanging them on the walls. Even the small, conical medical scanners were on the floor, too. Presumably, the door just inside the hospital room to the left was for the supplies that were behind him in boxes. The door all the way to the right must be for surgery. As he looked up, he saw a holo emitter dangling by a couple of wires from the ceiling. Apparently, the EMH was installed in some makeshift fashion to that emergency Commander Kirk eluded to a few minutes ago. One of the supply boxes was open, with some medical equipment on the floor next to it. From the looks of things, it was a dermal regenerator and some bandages. "By the prohets," he muttered.

He back out of the hospital room and maneuvered to the other door out of his office. This room, apparently, was his office. The front office must be for his nurse, whom he had yet to hear anything about. This office was fairly spacious, with a larger desk. Along the far wall was room for some kind of small research station. Regretfully, this room was even more cluttered with boxes than the front office was. He looked up at the nondescript white ceiling. In the center of this room, too, was a cluster of wires, presumably for another holo emitter. Doctor Rass surmized that the EMH was supposed to have free reign over the entire facility. Poking his head back into the front office, he saw yet another group of wires dangling from the ceiling as well. "Over my dead body," he thought. He dug briefly through the piles of unorganized treasures in his office. "Well, I may be understaffed on this ship, but they didn't spare any expense on the toys." he said as he held up part of a multi-spectral sub-particle microscope. He uncovered his chair, slowly unwrapped it, then placed it carefully behind the desk. He sat in the oversized leather chair. It was quite comfortable, actually, but it needed some adjustments. After many dozen small adjustments to height, back spacing, chair arm width, upper cushions, lower cushions, rocking tension, and chair wheel movement, he was satisfied.

"Well, that's about all I can do on my own," he said. He tapped his comm badge. "Doctor Rass to Commander Kirk."

His comm badge popped. "Kirk here. Go ahead, Doctor. What can I do for you?"

"You know darn well what you can do for me," he replied tersely. "My entire sickbay is in parts scattered all over the floor. It'll take me days to sort through all this by myself."

"Tell you what, Doctor," the comm badge replied, "let me go over the maintenance schedule this afternoon. I should be able to free up a couple of people to help you tomorrow morning. Will that work?"

The doctor let out a loud sigh. "I suppose it'll have to. Thank you, Commander. Doctor out." The doctor winced when he realized that came out more sarcastically than he had expected. Getting up from his chair, he looked through the boxes in his office looking for his personal belongings. Apparently, they were either buried deeply or hadn't made it out of the cargo bay yet. Sighing again, he remembered the captain had wanted to talk to him. He tapped his comm badge again. "Doctor Rass to Captain Velasquez."

"Velasquez here, doctor." her voice replied through the badge's speaker.

"Captain, I can't do a whole lot with my sickbay in the condition it's in. I've already informed Commander Kirk, though. Anyway, there's not much else I can do here until he sends me reinforcements. You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, doctor. I'll be right down. Velasquez out."

"I wonder what she wants," he said to himself. 


	16. Chapter 16

Lydia slowly eased herself out of bed. Her legs were shaking badly, particularly her right one. As she stepped onto the floor, her right leg gave way and she fell. Her arms, attempting to reach for the bed, also failed her. She landed unceremoniously with a thud. She used her left leg and arm to lift herself back up, since they weren't shaking quite as badly. Perhaps her attempts to keep her strong leadership image weren't the best decision. She stumbled for the pills she took from sickbay, which were at the end table in the living room. They were almost empty... not that it mattered. The medication was barely having any effect anymore. Taking three muscle relaxers only lessened the symptoms for twenty minutes at most. Almost instinctively, she took three. She dared not take any more than that. She sat down in her wicker chair waiting for the medication to have some kind of effect. She stared in her quarters, thinking she had forgotten to turn the lights on. As she looked up and saw the dimmed view of her overhead light, she realized her eyesight was worsening, too.

She sighed. "Perhaps now I need some help." She thought to herself. She brushed her wavy, shoulder-length brown hair back with her left hand. She could see, even though the darkness of her eyesight that a great deal of gray had intruded. "No, damnit," She said out loud. "I survived the Cardassian war, the Dominion War, and pregnancy...three times! I can get myself to the sickbay." Her will overpowering her muscle spasms and head pain, she stood up and headed out the door.

Thankfully, she only passed two people on the way to see the doctor and was able to force a smile and pleasantry to each one. Finally, she came to the frosted glass double doors of the sickbay. She took a deep breath, and walked inside...

...and promptly tripped over a box just inside the door. She let out a Spanish curse as she tried to right herself.

"Captain?" a voice came from the next room. Doctor Rass poked his head out holding a piece of equipment.

"I apologize, Doctor. Your area is in worse condition than I...OH!" Her left arm gave out on her as she attempted to stand. She plunged face first into a box. There was more Spanish cursing as she righted herself, a fresh cut on her head.

"My word!" Dorrin barked as he bounded over the crates to her. "Are you alright?" He offered a hand to her.

She raised a badly shaking hand to him. "Not exactly, Doctor. I don't think I can stand on my own any longer."

The doctor's eyes widened as he hoisted her up with one arm. He slung her arm over his shoulder, then put his arm around her waist. "Don't worry, Captain. Let's get you into a hospital bed. Thankfully, there are two that are unwrapped. Just hold onto me as best you can." Using more strength than Lydia thought his wiry frame possessed, he kicked large crates out of the way as they made their way to a hospital bed. "Come on now...just sit down here." He ushered her to the bed. Slowly, she sat down with a thud. As the doctor tried to swing her legs over so she could lay down, he saw just how bad things had gotten. Her right leg was spasming badly.

"Captain, I'm going to have to strap down that leg of yours. I don't want you sliding out of the bed." She nodded. Quickly, he pulled restraints from the sides of the bed and looped them around her legs. With a click, he connected them, then used the tension adjustment to tighten their grasp. Thankfully, one of the pieces of equipment that had been left on the floor was a medical tricorder. He grabbed it and with a flick of the wrist, popped it open. The bio-reader slipped out with a little 'click'. "Alright, Captain. I need to know exactly what's wrong and how long you've had the symptoms." 

She was impressed. It was almost like flipping a switch. He had gone from this light-hearted fish-out-of-water she met in the cargo bay to the no-frills professional she read about who had earned several awards and several more recommendations. "Well, it all started with a headache, I believe... maybe a month ago. I thought it was just stress, so I borrowed some of your pain relievers. My apologies for not asking first. You weren't here." She tried to smile.

"I'll bill you later. Okay, a headache a month ago. Keep going." As he spoke, he continued making adjustments to the tricorder, then scanned again.

"Well, things just started getting worse. I really started going downhill a couple of weeks ago. Blurry vision, minor blackouts, muscle spasms, mostly on my right side."

"Um, hmmm. What did the station doctor say?" He continued taking readings and shaking his head.

"Well, we were busy. Things needed to be done. I took it upon myself to remain here and see them through."

"I see...too stubborn to go to the doctor. That's a typical Captain's Condition." 

His facial expressions didn't even budge, at least, not as far as Lydia could see. She couldn't tell if he was kidding or not. "That's not why..." she started.

"This is not working." The doctor interrupted. "I need the bio board, but I don't have any way to hold up..." He looked around, trying to find something that would hold the bio sensor that was currently on the floor, but connected to the board. He rolled his eyes. He had an idea, but it wasn't a very good one. For lack of any better ideas coming to mind, he went with it. "Computer, engage EMH." He closed his eyes and shook his head.

The image of a tall, thin, pale human with short, red, curly hair appeared in the middle of the room. He was wearing oversized glasses. To Doctor Rass, everything about this image exhuded obnoxious. "Thank you for engaging the emergency medical holigram. Please state the nature of your medical emergency."

The doctor grabbed the fully-formed image and thrust the conical sensor into its hands. "Here," he said abruptly, "hold this."

With almost human instincts, the now tangible EMH doctor took the sensor. "I beg your pardon?" He asked, completely dumbfounded.

"I said," the doctor continued moving his holograhic counterpart, "stand here and hold that. Like this." Doctor Rass moved the hologram's arms so the sensor was pointing down at the captain at an angle over her head. "Now, don't move."

Although the EMH complied, he protested. "Perhaps you don't understand my actual purpose. In the event the senior medical officer is absent or incapacitated, I..."

"Shut up," Doctor Rass said flatly. "I AM the senior medical officer." He bent down to press some buttons on the bioreadout board. "Hold that thing still."

The EMH let out a "Hrmph," and narrowed his gaze at the doctor.

Having finished his adjustments to the screen, his eyes grew so large even Velasquez could see his worry. "By the prophets," he whispered.

"What's wrong, Doctor?" Now Lydia was starting to get worried. Her stubbornness had cost her in the past. She would have thought she would become more cautious with age.

"Captain," he started slowly, "it's some kind of virus. It's all over your brain. By the gods, it's everywhere." The EMH just stood silently.

Shock completely set in. "Doctor, I took tricorder readings myself, thinking I might have something worse. Everything came up negative." She looked at him desperately.

"If you're referring to the tricorder on the floor here, it wasn't calibrated properly. It wouldn't have seen this."

She laid back slowly into the bed and tried very hard not to cry. Her stubbornness had never cost her this badly. Mustering as much strength as she could, she asked the only question that came to her mind. "What's going to happen to me?"

The doctor slowly shook his head. "I honestly don't know. It has spread to your vision center, your fine muscle control, even your taste center."

"You know, I thought the food was starting to taste a little bland," she said almost rhetorically.

"Well, I need a computer right now...and I need some of my equipment set up. This can't wait until tomorrow." He took a deep breath to calm himself. The next few words out of his mouth were going to be difficult. "Can I assume you've been hiding this from the crew, too?"

Her eyes closed. She merely nodded.

"I see," he replied slowly. "I'm afraid that has to end as of right now. Captain Velasquez, as my first official action as senior medical officer of the USS Warlord, I'm temporarily relieving you of your command until we can get this cleared up."

To his surprise, she merely replied, "I understand." 


	17. Chapter 17

Commander Kirk was on the bridge with T'Nia helping her set up her tactical console when his comm badge popped. "Doctor Rass to Commander Kirk."

Kirk stood up and tapped his badge. "Kirk here. What can I do for you?"

The doctor's voice was quite assertive. "Commander, I have a bit of a medical emergency here. I need to see you right away, and bring a couple of maintenance folks with you. I need to have some equipment set up and it can't wait until morning."

T'Nia looked at Kirk quizzically. "Will do, Doctor. I'll round up a couple of maintenance crew and meet you in just a few minutes. Kirk out." In his heart, of course, he knew. Captain Velasquez had become less and less involved this past week or so. She would occasionally wince in pain for no reason, her pace had slowed considerably, and she had been trying to hide a fairly noticable limp. As T'Nia was beginning to ask a question, he raised his hand to quietly ask for a minute. He tapped his comm badge again. "Bridge to Maintenance."

He heard the familiar pop. "Maintenance, Leiutenant McPhearson here."

"Leiutenant, I need two of your people into sickbay on the double. Pull them from wherever you have to. I guess we have some kind of medical issue there and the doctor needs some of his equipment set up. I'm willing to bet one of his needs will be his computer. I need them in sickbay in five minutes."

"Understood, Sir. I'll have two people there in five minutes." The voice sounded a bit panicked, but he almost hid it.

"Thank you, Leiutenant. Kirk out." His face looked grave as he turned back to T'Nia. "I get the feeling I'm not going to like what the doctor has to say."

"Then, you know what the medical emergency is of which he is speaking?" T'Nia asked with her usual raised eyebrow.

"I have a pretty good idea, yeah." He replied. "You have the conn, Leiutenant Commander." He handed her his to-do task list. She took it and nodded compliance. She absently tapped the PADD against her free hand as he went into the turbolift. It was a very rare occasion to see Stephen this distraught. As the double-doors slid silently closed, she returned to her console.

Kirk grabbed the control lever. "Deck four." He stated. The turbolift zoomed him down and across. As Stephen walked down the rounding corridor, his mind was buzzing with possiblities. Eventually, he admitted there was nothing he could do, and no amount of worrying would help. He approached the double doors of the sick bay. The two maintenance personnel were already walking inside. He followed right after them...

...and all three nearly stumbled over each other as they encountered the myriad of boxes strewn across the floor. A few had been opened, and obviously had some equipment missing. 

The various exclamations of surprise alerted the doctor to their presence. Doctor Rass poked his head around the corner from his hospital. "Good!" he exclaimed rather sarcastically. He nodded to one of the crewmen. "You - get started hooking up my computer and video displays." He nodded to the other one and to Commander Kirk. "You two, come in here with me." With that, his head returned back around the corner. Kirk and the other creman shrugged to each other, then mountaineered themselves into the hospital room.

They saw a room in almost complete disarray. Two beds were uncovered and reasonably close to their intended positions, the other ten were still wrapped and stuck in a corner. A table had been hastily constructed near the two beds. The EMH was begrudgingly assembling some equipment on it using parts from various opened boxes. There was a person lying on one of the beds. The medical readout board was laying on top of the other bed. A bio sensor had been hastily nailed to the wall above the patient. As they moved closer, they saw the patient was none other than Captain Velasquez. Kirk stumbled quickly to her bedside. The maintenance crewman just stood there, stunned at everything he had been taking in.

"Crewman," the doctor commanded sternly, "help the EMH get my microscope and synthesizer set up." The crewman turned blankly towards the doctor, who apparently had no time for indecision. "Crewman...now!" That seemed to snap the crewman out from his daze. He quickly headed towards the EMH, who was still complaining of this job not being within his performance parameters. The doctor had had enough of that as well. "I said be quiet." He looked up at the holo emitter dangling from the ceiling. "Computer, mute EMH." The virtual doctor's voice suddenly quietted, though he continued talking. When the EMH realized his words weren't making noice, he shot Dorrin a look that would melt lead, then returned to his work with the maintenance engineer. From the other room, they could hear the other crewman talking with someone else via his comm badge.

Kirk patted his captain on her shoulder. As he looked, he could see her arms and legs were restrained. Her eyes were closed. His look of concern was genuine. He looked pleadingly at the doctor. "What's wrong, Doc?" He finally asked.

"Well," he started slowly, still writing information on a PADD, "she's suffering from some kind of cranial virus. You can see it over on the bio board." Without looking up, he used the PADD stylus to point to the display on the empty bed. 

As Stephen looked, he could see the three-dimensional representation of Captain Velasquez's brain in green and blue. There were several large splotches of red and orange scattered about its surface. It even appeared as though some splotches were below the surface. "Oh, my gosh..." he muttered. "Is she?.."

"I... am fine... for now, Commander." She said slowly and quietly. Her eyes did not open, but she smiled. 

"Try not to talk, Captain," the doctor said softly.

"I won't... but I need to... talk to Stephen... for a moment." Her eyes occasionally winced in pain.

The doctor looked at the captain, then the commander. "All right," he relented, "but try to keep it brief." He headed back to the table where the other two were assembling the equipment.

"Commander..." she started. Her voice was shaky. 

"I'm here, Captain," Kirk said slowly. He patted her shoulder again.

"The doctor has... wisely... relieved me of command while... I try to... beat this bug." She tried her hardest to remain strong and positive. The truth was, all she could think about was her four grandchildren. She had allowed herself to imagine not seeing them again. That thought was more painful than the headache.

His eyes lowered to the floor. "I see."

"This ship... launches... in twenty-six days." She struggled to turn towards Stephen, her shoulders coming off the bed. Her voice became more assertive. "I expect... you to... keep everything on task." She needed to be strong, if not for her own sake, for his sake...for the crew's sake.

Her strength convinced him she'd be back. He stood up straight. "Yes, Sir. I'll keep the seat warm for you."

Confident she had successfully 'bossed him' once more, she relaxed her shoulders and laid back down with a smile. "You had better, Commander. And don't get any coffee stains on MY chair."

"Yes, Sir." He added with a smile. "If you'll excuse me, I guess I'll get back to making sure this ship is ready for you."

"You are dismissed, Commander." Captain Velasquez said with another smile.

"YOU were relieved of duty, Captain." Commander Kirk replied with a wry smile of his own. "You can't dismiss anybody. I guess I'll dismiss myself." With that, he spun on his heel, gave a nod to the doctor, who he saw was now facing them, and maneuvered his way out of sickbay.

Despite the pain, Lydia had to laugh. THAT was why she had requested him as her first officer. They were almost mirror images of each other in personality, though almost thirty years apart in seasoning. He was willful, spirited, instinctual, and passionate. He was, however, fiercely loyal to his crewmates and bent on making sure he always did the right thing. If channeled properly, he'd make one hell of a captain. His psych profile suggested he carried a continual inferiority complex because of his great-grandfather, the legendary Captain James Kirk. This, supposedly, was at least part of the cause of occasional rebellion and indecision. Although, after reading his biography, she could see numerous similarities, she knew better than to voice them. She would be content to help him discover his true self and true worth, as she had done three times before with former first officers.

Dorrin stopped to consider everything he had seen from his new captain. She was dedicated, driven, considerate, and a bit stubborn. Still, it was obvious to him that she had the respect of her crew. Her reputation as a maverick had preceeded her. Now he could see why she had earned that title. As he contemplated why Starfleet would put such a person in charge of the most powerful ship in the history of space travel, the answer came to him. Such a person was capable of thinking for herself. In a time of crisis, she could be relied upon to make quick, correct decisions, and not wait on a superior to give her instructions. Satisfied with himself for answering his own question, he returned to work.

"Doctor?" a voice questioned from behind him.

The doctor spun around to look in the entryway. "Yes, crewman?"

"I've got your video interface up and running. It's going through the initial diagnostic cycle right now, but you'll be able to use it in just a few seconds. I'll start hooking up your desktop display now."

"Wow...you're good, Ensign." The doctor replied sincerely. "And just in time." The doctor pulled a small vial of liquid from a synthesizer and plugged it into the bottom of a hypospray. Skipping deftly around boxes and equipment, he reached his patient and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Alright, Captain. I've got something here that will do a much better job on the pain and muscle spasms than those pills you were taking." That said, he gently put the injector of the hypospray to her neck, and pressed the 'dispense' button. "It'll make you drowsy, though. But, I bet you could do with a rest."

"Thank you," she whispered. "I would like that very much."

"I'll see if I can't get a computer interface in this room installed next. Then, at least you can listen to some music." He said with a shrug. It was uncomfortably silent here, save the sounds of maintenance crewmen moving boxes and clicking things together. Other than the sounds of construction and the monotonously regular beeping of the heart monitor, there wasn't a sound.

"Hopefully..." Lydia started, "Tom hasn't... disconnected that... from our computers."

"Well, if he has," Dorrin replied confidently, "I should be able to convince whoever this 'Tom' person is to turn it back on." He added a nod. "Now, then...I'm off to go do some research to figure out exactly what this bug is. Rest well, Captain." Doctor Rass turned on his heel and headed for his office.

"Tom... is... our... senior... engin...zzzzzzzz" 


	18. Chapter 18

Captain Velasquez awoke with a moan. Her head still hurt a bit, but it was still much improved. She could tell her limbs weren't shaking, either. Whatever the doctor concocted, it was good. She dared to open her eyes. Her eyesight had not improved. "Is anyone here?" She asked the air. 

She could hear a voice from another room. "Captain? Are you finally awake?" It was the doctor.

"Yes," she replied slowly. "Finally awake?"

"Yes," he answered. His voice seemed to be closer, most likely in the same room. "You've been out for over six hours."

"Six hours?" She half shouted. The shock quickly left her. She then realized that the doctor had six hours to figure out what was wrong with her. "Have you learned anything about my condition?"

His voice lowered, which made Lydia uncomfortable. "Yes, I have," he said finally. "I'm afraid you're not going to like some of it."

Her heart sunk. "Just tell it to me straight, doctor." She sounded quite defeated.

"Well," he started, "I began by going through your itinerary... trying to see where you've been, so I could narrow the search. Do you remember going to Aldebra 3 a couple of months ago?"

Her mind quickly returned to the rock climbing she did on Aldebra 3. The beautiful terrain, the marvelous twin suns in the sky, the smell of flowers was like expensive perfume. Supposedly, it was the best rock climbing planet in all the alpha quadrant. "Yes, I do." she replied from her daydream.

"Good," he measured his response. "Do you remember your physician telling you to do something before going to Aldebra 3? He told you during your preliminary physical, then reminded you again about a month before you left."

Her mind strained to remember conversations from that far back. She hadn't been to Aldebra 3 for almost three months. Suddenly, the memory came back to her like a brick. "Vaccinations?" she asked. She began to feel nervous. She had forgotten to have the necessary injections before going. The second time her doctor told her, she thought he was just being worrysome because of her age. Surely this can't be it. This couldn't be her fault.

"Yep," he replied with finality. "That would be it. This virus is just one of several nasty, little bugs on Aldebra 3. Be thankful, Captain. You could have caught something much worse there. This Aldebran cranial virus is one of the more moderate bugs."

"Oh, my God," she replied. "There are things worse than this?"

"Considerably. I spoke with a senior member of the Aldebran Ministry of Medicine. He said there no less than five species of virus that can cause death to a human within twelve hours of contact."

"I thought Joe was just being overly proective of me," she said with a sigh. "I can't believe I brought all this on myself."

"Yes, well," Dorrin replied with unusual sympathy, "no sense beating yourself up about that now. What's done is done. Here's the shortened version of what's happening to you. The virus is actually feeding off the alpha waves in your brain. That's the frequency of electricity your brain generates during calm, conscious hours. Its byproduct is an enzyme that's actually corroding your brain tissue."

"Dear God," she said quietly.

"So...as parts of your brain are corroded, you begin to lose its associative functionality. That's what's happening to your eyesight, sense of taste, muscle control, etcetera. It's the act of corrosion that's giving you the headaches."

This was beginning to overwhelm her. She struggled to think of what to say next. "Is there anything we can do?" she finally asked.

"Yes." He replied with confidence. "There's actually a fairly simple way to kill the bugs. If I put you into a catatonic state, the virus will eventually starve to death in ten to thirteen days. The enzyme they produce will coalesce, then everything can be removed with a simple surgical procedure."

"Ten to thirteen days?" she repeated. "What about the damage already done?"

"That's the hard part." He replied slowly. "Repairing brain tissue has always been problematic at best. However, I do know of an excellent neurologist. He's one of the best in the business. He's actually published more books than I've read...and I read a lot. I've already contacted him. He's doing a long-term research project on Starbase 173. He's been working on a special kind of dermal regenerator specifically for brain tissue. He can't make any promises, but it might help give you back some of your lost functions. I was just listening to the message he sent me."

Her heart dared to lift once more. This was, potentially, wonderful news. All thoughts of completing the Warlord far from her mind, she asked "Can you see if Commander Kirk can arrange transporation for me to Starbase 173?"

"Listen, Captain," Doctor Rass stated firmly, "I'll make certain you get to Starbase 173. Don't you worry about that. The most important thing is killing this virus before it causes more damage. The sooner you let me put you into a comatose state, the sooner we can start starving these bugs. I have the necessary injection on the table. I can place micro stimpacks on your major muscle groups that will provide random muscle contractions. That will help reduce your rehabilitation time once you're out."

She didn't even think. Perhaps that was more impulsiveness on her part, perhaps just a typical human reaction. "Do it, doctor." She stated.

"As you wish," Dorrin replied. 


	19. Chapter 19

Captain's log, stardate: 56828.8, Commander Kirk reporting... the news of our captain being comatose was a blow to everyone. The senior officers have all concurred that we need to get Captain Velasquez help as quickly as possible. Starfleet tells us the nearest ship that can get her to Starbase 173 is almost five days away. I have asked Leiutenant Moreaux and Leiutenant Kelly to give me options that will allow our limited computer resources to use the sensor mask so we can transport the captain ourselves. I'll be meeting with them in just a moment to hear what they've discovered. Oh, yeah... one of the few things that worked 'out of the box' is our ability to convert our secondary drive system for propulsion. Tom said it would only take about two hours to make the necessary changes. I already told him to do it. That way, we can fly at warp 9 indefinately, well...technically speaking. We'll see. End log entry."

Commander Kirk sat complacently in the captain's ready room, behind her desk. He was hoping good news would be coming through the door soon. The light sounds of the door chime told him SOME kind of answer was on the other side of the door. "It's open," Kirk said to the door. The door slid open with a hiss. Tom and Tony came through quickly with smiles. Stephen was beginning to feel better already. His face brightened. "I take it you two have some good news?"

They sat down in the chairs opposite the commander. "Yep," Tony answered simply. "I have to make some changes to the masking program, though...mostly module removal. If I completely remove the interactivity and lower the resolution a bit, we can make it work. I've already run some tests in a simulation." Both Tom and Tony nodded.

"Okay, sounds almost too good to be true, guys." Kirk sounded a bit skeptical. "What's the catch to making all these changes?"

"Well," Tony started, "without interactivity, the mask won't respond to changes in the environment. If we pass by a star or go around an asteroid or something, the lighting or shadows won't change on the object we decide to imitate. It'll stay at the same light level. Also, if we took damage or anything, we wouldn't be able to project that back to anyone scanning us. It would be the same, static image. With the lower resolution, well...that's more for people who are close enough to look at us out a window. The image we project will look kinda blocky up close. They'd know something was up."

"But, Commander," Tom interrupted waving his arms, "we aren't planning on engaging anyone or even getting that close. Pretty much everyone who'll be looking at us will be doing it through long range sensors. They won't see anything's wrong. There is one other downside, though." His hands went down to his lap.

"What's that?" Kirk asked expectantly.

"Well, even with these restrictions, the mask'll chew up a heck of a lot of CPU power. We'll be able to keep propulsion and environmental controls going, and that's about it. The mask is a pretty resource-intensive beast, even if the image we're trying to look like is static."

"Gotcha...but, we can do it, right?" Kirk leaned forward in his chair.

"Absolutely," Tony replied with a nod.

"No worries," Tom concurred.

Stephen slapped the desk with both hands. "Excellent, guys! That IS good news, and we could sure use some. Make it so, gentlemen. Let me know as soon as we're ready to get underway. I need to go ask Mr. Bristol how long it will take us to get to Starbase 173 at maximum warp." Kirk rose from the chair.

The other two followed suit with a "Yes, Sir." 


	20. Chapter 20

"Captain's log, stardate 56842.2, Commander Kirk reporting: We have arrived in sector 23, the home of Starbase 173. The sensor mask has continued to function adequately, though we did have a few hiccups yesterday. Our senior systems engineer decided to test the computer by running a holodeck simulation of a classic baseball game. Unfortunately, there was some kind of bleedthrough between holographic projections. From what I'm told, we were flying around looking like Fenway Park for at least four hours. Thankfully, no one saw us. We're back to looking like a pretty pathetic replica of the medical frigate USS Nightengale. I'm not sure where the actual ship is, but it's nowhere around here. That's all I care about. We'll be dropping Captain Velasquez off within the hour. Dr. Rass' neurologist friend is already set to receive her. I've decided we'll continue weapons testing in the Dedry nebula. It's only a couple of hours from Starbase 173 and its composition severely restricts sensors. We may not be able to see what's coming at us, but no one will know we're in there. We can afford to test in there as long as necessary and continue to check on the Captain's progress. Geez... I have to learn to stop rambling into this thing. End log entry."

"Commander," Leiutenant Davies announced, "I have Starbase 173 on the line. As you requested, I told them we were having some computer difficulties so audio communication is all we currently have available."

Kirk nodded from the captain's chair. "They bought it?"

Elaine shrugged. "Well, they didn't ask ME anything about it."

Kirk shrugged, too. "Good. Put them over the speakers, Leiutenant."

With a few taps against her control panel, she replied, "You're on, Commander."

Sounding as authoritative as possible, he sat up in his chair and straightened his overshirt. "Starbase 173, this is the USS Nightengale, over."

A crackly and gruff voice came over the internal overhead speaker. "This is Leiutenant Loth. I hear you have a patient for one of our doctors."

"That's correct," Kirk replied, somewhat relieved there weren't any questions regarding the Nightengale's condition or crew. "If you'll give us the coordinates, we'll beam her over."

"I'm transmitting the coordinates for the triage section now." The reply sounded bored.

Kirk looked down from the speaker to Elaine. "Leiutenant, send those coordinates down to the transporter room." He felt a little guilty not being there to help put her on the transporter. He had considered it for a long while, but determined his presence would be better suited here, in case the Starbase personnel started asking questions. Happily and regretfully, there were no questions so far.

The bridge overhead speaker popped. A voice unfamiliar to Kirk spoke. "Bridge, this is the transporter room. We have the coordinates. The doc gave me the okay, so I'm sending the Captain across."

Kirk instinctively looked up at the speaker. "Understood, transporter room. Bridge out." For the life of him, he could never figure out what it was about human nature that forced him to look at a speaker when he talked to it.

Several moments later, the speaker popped, "Nightengale, this is Starbase 173. We have your captain. Feel free to dock at pylon four. The lane is clear."

"Um..." Kirk stammered, "We appreciate the offer, but we have, um...some... experiments to perform in the Dedry nebula. We'll be back periodically to check on her progress." T'Nia gave him a curious eye and mouthed the word "experiments". Kirk only shrugged his shoulders in response.

"The Dedry nebula?" the gruff station operator questioned. "What in the world do you have to do in there? The whole thing is one ionized mess."

"Well," Kirk stumbled again, "they're classified. They involve some... sensitive... medical... stuff." Kirk winced at the word 'stuff'. T'Nia rolled her eyes. The remainder of the bridge crew was torn between laughter and worry.

"Right." The operator sounded unconvinced. "Hey, whatever you do on that ship of yours is your business. Just let me know when you come back around. Starbase 173 out." The speaker popped indicating the connection had closed between the starbase and the ship. 

Kirk collapsed in the captain's chair with a heavy breath. The crew began laughing. T'Nia almost smiled. "'Sensitive medical STUFF?'" she repeated with a raised eyebrow. The laughter increased.

"Hey, it was all I could think of off the top of my head. Jeez... the guy probably thinks this is a big orgy ship or something." The laughter increased yet again. Stephen shook his head. He let himself relax just a bit. The past couple of days had been somewhat stressful with the engines continually running hot, the latency problem with the computer, systems blinking in and out, and the captain being unconscious throughout all of it. He decided to laugh, too.

Eventually, Kirk turned to his helsman, who was quite red-faced with laughter. "Bristol."

"Yes, Sir?" Tyler replied, still laughing.

"When you've finished having fun at my expense, get us into the nebula." Kirk said with a smile. He arbitrarily pointed forward with his finger.

"Aye, aye, Commander," Ensign Bristol replied, trying to sound professional. He was going to like it here after all. Tyler had been nervous about accepting this position, since he had only served aboard the Lancaster for a year. "Setting course for the Dedry nebula." His hands passed easily among the controls. Slowly, eventually, the ship responded. 


	21. Chapter 21

"Captain's log, stardate 56844.1, Commander Kirk reporting: Well, it's been THREE days. Captain Velasquez's condition has improved slightly again. Apparently, more of the virus is dying. About half of it is dead, but Dr. Abraeton still insists he can't start the regeneration until it's all dead and removed. So far, nothing they've tried has helped speed the little bugger's deaths. Dr. Rass is finally content with his office setup. And...the conventional ordinance testing went well yesterday. All weapons fired properly, and with a little recalibrating, they even line up right. With a little moving around of equipment, we were able to successfully test the primary and secondary shield systems, too. That's more than I can say for the main guns. We tried firing the port cannon yesterday and completely overheated the whole thing. The entire ship shook and everything. After that little adventure, we decided against testing the starboard cannon. I will say this, right up until the whole system locked up, it looked really impressive. Leiutenant Commander T'Nia, Leiutenant Moreaux and Leiutenant Kelly and I will be holding a meeting in a few minutes to figure out exactly what happened. End log entry."

T'Nia and Stephen approached the door to the situation room. It slid open with a hiss. Stephen ushered T'Nia in first. Tony and Tom were already seated at the large, black-laquered table. Obviously, it was meant for many more than this. There were actually twelve overstuffed black leather chairs around it, each with its own small viewscreen in front. T'Nia sat down behind Tony. Kirk looked tired, but, as he surveyed his team, they all looked tired. With a loud slump, he dropped a PADD on the table and turned to Tom Kelly, his senior engineer. "Alright, Tommy. You said you have some new news for us." In recent days, Stephen discovered that Tom actually prefers the name Tommy. Since Stephen concluded they'd be serving together for awhile, it would be in his best interests to consciously take a more informal tone. He had been actively trying to refer to him as Tommy ever since.

"Yessir." Tom replied slowly. "Though I'm not sure I can do anything about it for the moment. I've got some guys scrounging through our boxes of supplies in the cargo bays now. Anyway, the cooling system they installed should have worked. According to the specs I was given, it should have been fine. It was pumping all the necessary coolant to keep the pre-fire system nice and chilly. There's something else wrong. It's the actual pre-fire system. It generated almost thirty percent more heat than the specs said it would. I haven't traced down the cause yet. What I can tell you is; we were lucky. Since the overheating came from the pre-fire system, that was building energy that hadn't been discharged yet. Instead of just overheating, the whole unit could have exploded. It would have taken a pretty fair chunk of our port superstructure with it, too."

"That could have ruined our day." Kirk said slowly. He wrinkled his brows, "So, what do you have your guys looking for?"

"Well, I'd like to rebuild the port cannon and try it again using, maybe, fifty percent power. I'd like to know what exactly is causing it to overheat like that."

"With everything else that's overheating on this ship, could this be another computer issue?"

"Na...not this time. The weapons systems are on their own system...part of the whole redundant control thing."

Kirk turned to Moreaux, "Was there some kind of program glitch in the firing program?"

Tony perked up. He had been quite bored with the engineering mumbo-jumbo and started daydreaming about his vacation to Risa six months ago. "Well, I looked at the trace logs. The program worked just fine. It looks like the problem is mechanical, not programmatical."

Tom nodded. "That's what I thought, too. That's why I was planning on using some spare parts to put it back together."

The words 'spare parts' struck something with Stephen. "Tommy, we don't have any 'spare parts.' Those parts your guys are sorting through are meant for other systems, aren't they?"

"Well, yeah." Kelly shrugged.

"Well, yeah...why don't you make sure those parts aren't needed for something more important first. We still have the starboard cannon we can play with, after all." Tom nodded slowly. In his zeal to get the cannons working properly, he had forgotten about the rest of the ship... probably because the number of complaints of failing systems had gone down. Kirk turned to Tony. "Tony, I want you working with Tom on this one. Step through the program line by line, if necessary, to help him figure out where the failpoint is."

"I can do that, Commander." Leiutenant Moreaux answered. "Now that the code I modified for the sensor mask is fixed, I've been looking for stuff to do, anyway."

"Dang, Tony," Kirk started. "I wish I had known that. The cargo bays are a mess." The group chuckled. Kirk stood up and grabbed the PADD he had tossed. "Alright, ladies and gentlemen. If there's nothing else..."

Suddenly, the room turned yellow with a change of lights. An alarm sounded through the ship. Over the shipwide speakers, Ensign Davies voice could be heard. "Yellow alert, yellow alert. Commander Kirk to the bridge immediately."

"Is this some kind of drill?" Tom asked, half-worriedly.

"Nope." Kirk replied quickly as he tapped his badge. "Kirk to bridge." He headed for the door.

His badge popped. "Bridge, Bristol here, Sir. Are you coming?" He sounded a little panicked.

"I'm on my way now, Leiutenant. What's wrong? Kirk's voice was calm. He was successfully hiding the fact he was a little nervous about this unscheduled alert.

"Commander, our sensors just picked up a vessel in close proximity!"

"I'm on my way!" With that, he, T'Nia and Tony ran out the door and to the left. Tom ran out and to the right. 


	22. Chapter 22

The door to the turbolift opened. With military precision, Tony went to his computer station behind the captain's chair, T'Nia walked to her tactical station in front and to the right of the captain's chair, and Kirk sat down in 'the big chair'. "Report." he said simply.

"It just showed up. It's barely within sensor range because of the ionization. We know it's there, but we can't make out any details." Bristol was trying to sound calm.

"Alright." Kirk said calmly. He pivoted the chair over to T'Nia. "What have you got, T'Nia?"

She was already looking at sensor readings. "They're erratic, Commander." T'Nia confirmed. "I cannot get an exact size of the craft, but it appears to be relatively small... perhaps some short range vessel."

"Put it on screen. Maybe we can get a better look at it." The screen shifted from a rainbow collage of reds, oranges, and blues with occasional rock debris to a location apparently off the port side and a little low. All they could see was snow with a darker red image in the middle.

"Commander, that's as good we're going to get. With the sensors trained that far out, we aren't getting much. Wait." As she spoke, the red blob started to grow in size. "It's moving towards us."

Kirk was about to say to engage the sensor mask when Ensign Davies spoke. "Commander, we're being hailed. It's one of the runabouts from Starbase 173." Everyone immediately relaxed except Stephen.

"Uh, oh. This should be an interesting conversation. Put it on screen, Leiutenant." He pivoted the captain's chair to face forward as the face of a young cadet, barely twenty, appeared on the giant screen. He still had pimples.

His face was priceless. Try as he might to act 'normal', the image of the Warlord wasn't something he was prepared for. "Um...this is the Runabout... um... Valeri. I'm... looking for the USS Nightengale. Have you seen her?" He tried once again to look calm.

Commander Kirk smiled. "All this for a snot-nosed cadet in a Runabout. Some warship crew we are." he thought to himself. He took a deep breath and let it out audibly. "Good afternoon, Cadet. I'm Commander Stephen Kirk of the USS Warlord. Let's just say we know where the Nightengale is. What business do you have with her?"

The cadet looked even more shocked. "YOU'RE Commander Kirk? I was told you were in command of the Nightengale." His face turned to utter confusion.

"It's alright, Cadet. Calm down." Stephen assured him. "In a manner of speaking, I am. I'll explain everything in just a moment. Did you need to talk to me?"

That seemed to be enough of an explanation to ease the cadet a bit. "Yeah...I mean, yes, Sir... I mean... a lot has happened in the last couple of hours. We got an encrypted message from someplace in Romulan space, we've had just about every Admiral in the fleet contact us, it's been nuts. Oh!" the cadet suddenly remembered he had something more important to say. "Uh, Starfleet Command has been trying to contact you for the past couple of hours. There's a priority one message for you. When they told us you were in charge of the Nightengale, we said that you guys were probably still in the Dedry nebula and couldn't receive communications. They sent me in to go looking for the Nightengale. I've been in here for a little over an hour. This isn't the Nightengale, though."

The only way around this issue is through it, Kirk thought. "Look, Cadet. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. The USS Warlord is a brand new, experimental starship capable of changing its appearance to look like anything we want it to be. We masked ourselves to look like the Nightengale to avoid any un-needed suspicion so close to the Neutral Zone." Kirk sat forward in his chair, cupped his hands under his chin and put his elbows on his knees. His brown eyes and voice became stern. "Cadet, our true identity and capabilities are highly classified. You are not to disclose any of what you've seen or heard about this vessel to anyone. Do you understand?"

The cadet's eyes ballooned larger than before. "Wow..." was all he could say. Commander Kirk cocked his head and stared at the cadet even more intently. The cadet got the message. "I mean, I understand, Sir. I won't tell a soul."

Stephen sat back in his chair. "Good. I'm counting on you, Cadet. You must keep our secret for now. If anyone asks you; you simply tell them that you successfully contacted the Nightengale and relayed the message."

The cadet's chest swelled and he grinned from ear to ear with this kind of responsibility. "I understand, Sir. You can count on me." He almost yelled the last sentence.

"I know I can, Cadet. Warlord out." Kirk winked as the screen switched off. The viewscreen resorted back to the previous view of the runabout. It quickly turned around and was back out of sensor range. Stephen let out a heavy sigh of relief, as did the rest of the bridge crew. He suddenly realized the yellow alert siren was still going off. "That was close," he said finally. Looking over his shoulder, he spoke to Leiutenant Davies. "Leiutenant, stand down from yellow alert." 

"Aye, aye, Sir." she answered quickly. The alarm stopped.

He then looked toward Ensign Bristol. "Tyler, get us out of this nebula, best speed."

"Understood, Sir." he replied. Bristol still looked a little dazed. The past few minutes were quite stressful and a bit unnerving. His hands slid across the navigation panel. Within moments, the great ship had altered course and was increasing in speed, slowly, as to avoid overheating the impulse engines.

Looking over his other shoulder, Kirk ordered Tony next. "Leiutenant Moreaux, get that sensor mask back online. It's time for us to become the USS Nightengale again."

"Roger that, Commander." Tony replied. His hands started flying over his keyboard.

"Leiutenant Davies, as soon as we're clear of the nebula, get me Starfleet Command."

"Aye, aye, Sir." She replied. He didn't hear her, though. Instead, he was staring at T'Nia, who momentarily looked back at him. He could tell she was sharing the same thoughts as him. His heart began to race. A Romulan encrypted message? A priority one message for Kirk? Dear God, they couldn't actually be wanting us to DO anything, could they? 


	23. Chapter 23

Tom arrived on the bridge as Elaine established contact with Starfleet Command. Stephen nodded to him as Admiral Leonard's face appeared on screen. Tom sat silently down at his auxiliary engineering station behind the captain's seat. "Admiral, this is Commander Kirk of the Warlord. I hear you've been looking for me."

There was a visible expression of relief on the old admiral's face. "Kirk, thank goodness. We've been trying to get you for over 4 hours."

"Well, Admiral, that nebula does a very thorough job of keeping sensors out of our business while we tested the weapons systems..."

The admiral interrupted. "Good, good...at least we have you now. How are the weapons tests coming along?" There was a certain urgency in the admiral's bearded face that made Kirk a bit uncomfortable.

Kirk considered for a moment how to best respond. "Our standard ordinance works just fine...the torpedoes and the phasers. The new cannons, well...not so much. We almost blew off part of the ship during one of the tests."

"Can you fix it?" The admiral asked quickly.

Kirk turned to Tom with an inquisitive look. Tom, sensing that he was supposed to answer, took a quick mental inventory of what he thought he could use. Now, he regretted Kirk's decision to abandon canibalizing parts for the cannon. "Well, Admiral..." Leiutenant Kelly started. "I think we can put the burned out cannon back together. But...we can't figure what went wrong. It'll take us a couple of days to figure out the cause. Otherwise, we'll just burn it out again the next time we fire it...or...we'll blow it up." Tom shrugged.

"Oh, my... that's unfortunate." the admiral's face grew worrisome. "What about the shields? Your last report I got said your main shields worked. What about the secondary shields?"

"We don't have the parts for that yet, Admiral." Kirk answered. Tom nodded in agreement. "What's going on?" Kirk asked flatly.

Admiral Leonard's eyes squinted as he looked into his viewscreen. "Commander, being out of communications for the past several days has probably kept you out of the loop on current events. There's been a coup within the Romulan Empire. The Remans have taken over the government. Enterprise is at Romulus right now at the request of a Reman named Shinzon. Supposedly, Shinzon wanted to formalize relations with the Federation. The last communication we received from Enterprise was that Shinzon had some gigantic warship called the Scimitar at his disposal, but wanted to talk peace. We haven't been able to contact Enterprise for over a day.

"Earlier today, Starbase 173 received a communication from one of our operatives within the Empire. He had gotten himself into the Reman mining planet. Apparently, the Remans do NOT want any kind of relations with the Federation. Why Shinzon wanted the Enterprise there is still unknown, but the Scimitar has some kind of planet killing technology aboard. Here's where it gets worse; our spy informed us that the Remans also have two of these warships. The Scimitar is the flagship, but there's another one, called the Rapier, which is the prototype. Their plan is to ambush the Enterprise, take whatever it is they want, then begin the conquest of the rest of the Romulan Empire, followed by the Federation. The Rapier has already launched from Remus and should arrive at Romulus in eight or nine hours. I'm sending you the coordinates of where we think your best chance will be to intercept them. I wish I had another alternative than to send Warlord, but the next nearest starship is over a week away and it doesn't have any way to detect cloaked ships. Commander, I'm truly sorry to have to do this to you... especially when your ship is in the condition it's in." 

The Admiral sat up straight and looked as official as he could, despite the worry and sorrow he was obviously feeling. "Commander Kirk, whatever the Remans want with Enterprise, they cannot have it. They must be stopped at all costs. Your mission is to intercept the Rapier, if possible, before it reaches the Enterprise. If you think you've missed your opportunity to achieve that, your secondary mission is to proceed to Romulus and offer whatever assistance you can to the Enterprise. Your goal is to keep that ship protected." His face softened a bit. "Good luck and God's speed. Leonard out." The screen faded to blue, with the Federation logo in the center.

Each member of the bridge crew sat in silence as they took in the gravity of what Admiral Leonard had just commissioned them to do. Commander Kirk looked at the stunned faces of his crewmates. This wasn't what he wanted. He desperately hoped Starbase 173 would contact them to inform them that Captain Velasquez had miraculously healed and was ready for duty. Under his breath, he said a prayer that God would deliver just that.

Ensign Bristol stared at the blue viewscreen studying the Federation logo. His mind drifted back to his holodeck simulations and his one-handed defeat of the Romulan warbirds. If pressed, he would have to admit he was actually excited about this. Warlord was undermanned, underpowered, and untested...going against a terrible new threat that would spell certain doom for the Federation if they failed. This was the kind of stuff he read about in history books and novels. He had dreamed of being in a position like this himself. Now, it's coming true. Tyler almost jumped out of his seat.

Leiutenant Commander T'Nia regarded the admiral's words as the screen went to blue. Her mind went over all the issues preventing the Warlord from being fully functional. Given less than nine hours, virtually none of these issues could be addressed, let alone resolved. From the conversation, the Reman vessel was a prototype, so possibly not as well equipped as the production model. It was large, therefore it probably contained a similar weapons array to the Warlord. It could cloak, therefore the broad-spectrum tacheon burst would need to be operational. Her fingers quickly moved over her console to ensure it was online.

Leiutenant Moreaux sat at his chair as the viewscreen went to blue. His eyes drifted down to his Academy friend, Steve. My God, we are completely screwed. Tony loved Steve like a brother. They had been through a lot at the Academy and always managed to keep in touch after they graduated. Tony tried to shake his doubts about Stephen. After all, Steve always had the top grade in starship tactics. He was one hell of a fighter pilot and an even better helmsman. Thoughts kept nagging at him, though...thoughts of how Steve slid into the Academy using a little-used military policy. Thoughts of how Steve had barely passed half his classes. Thoughts of how quickly Steve had been promoted after graduation. He's a commander already...I'm still a lowly leiutenant. Sure, Steve had some skills, but he had to have been sailing under his great-grandfather's name for some of this. That's the only way it explains everything that's happened to him. Now, Steve's in charge of this incomplete bucket of bolts going against some unknown Reman warship. They were doomed... and there was no way for him to get out.

Leiutenant Kelly stared blankly at the floor. He knew this ship would see combat. It was a warship, for crying out loud. This was what it was meant to do. But without a full crew? His engineering team had already been beaten up these past few days getting the weapons systems working. Without full weapons? He wondered if the secondary weapons systems would work under pressure. Without full shields? He could configure either the primary shields, which were impressive, or the secondary shields, which were typical for every other starship in space. His mind drifted back to his fiancee. Would he ever see her again? Did he want to? After all, there are some very attractive women on this ship. His mind began picturing them. Oddly enough...one of them was sitting right next to him...

Leiutenant Davies absently shut down the connection. The viewscreen switched from blue to the dotted blackness of space. Up until now, the realization of her being aboard a warship had never hit her. She was into communications. She was fluent in eight different languages. She was currently studying Ferengi. Sure, this was a great opportunity. She had burned a few bridges on her previous assignment on the USS Lexington. This chance to start over again on a brand new vessel full of people she didn't already know had come at just the right time. Starfleet had told her the new assignment would carry a more combative element, but it wasn't until she saw the thing that she realized it was a warship. It had troubled her at first, since she was more into exploration and alien contact, but all the building activity had pushed Warlord's true purpose from her mind. With this assignment, it all came rushing back, and in a very scary way.

A small, blinking light on her panel brought her back. The light marked 'data transmission' was blinking. She tapped the button, listened for a moment, then turned to Commander Kirk. "Commander, I have the coordinates Admiral Leonard was referring to." Her voice was almost monotone.

Kirk snapped to quickly and nodded Elaine's direction. "Pipe it to Bristol, Leiutenant." He said.

"Aye, aye, Sir." she replied robotically.

"Got 'em, Sir." Tyler stated. He sounded almost chipper. 

His youthful exuberance made Stephen smile. He nodded. He looked back to Elaine. "I guess I better let everyone else in on the plan. Put me over the system speakers."

She nodded and pressed a series of keys. "You're on, Commander."

For a moment, he tried to think of something galant or noble to say. Times like this call for galant and noble speaches. Nothing was coming to mind. He cleared his throat and stood up, once again looking towards the ceiling. "This is Commander Kirk. I need everyone to stop what they're doing for a moment and listen." He paused. 

"As of this moment, we are no longer an experimental vessel performing system tests. We have been activated and assigned our first mission. The USS Enterprise is in grave danger from multiple attackers. We have been ordered to intercept and neutralize one of the enemy vessels." Suddenly, the words he had hoped to say just came to him in a startling moment of clarity. "I know we weren't expecting this so soon, but this is a warship. This is our job. We may not have all the equipment. We may not have all the personnel. We may not have all the systems. Even so, we have a vessel that was built to survive. We have a crew that has already accomplished more than anyone expected. Even in our current state, we have a combination of personnel and machine that cannot fail. We dare not fail. In the end, the alpha quadrant will know the name Warlord and we will celebrate our victory together with the crew of the Enterprise. Back to your stations, everyone... and prepare for battle."

The bridge crew clapped. Bristol let out a shout. Even Tony dared to believe they might succeed. Kirk gave the 'cut' sign to Elaine with his thumb across his throat. She closed the channel.

"Ensign Bristol, lay in a course to the intercept point, maximum warp."

Tyler's hands effortlessly glided over his panel. "Course and speed laid in, Commander."

Stephen sat back in his chair. For several long moments he waited, hoping to get that miracle communication from Starbase 173. The communications panel was mockingly silent. Like it or not, this was his command for now. He looked up at the viewscreen with determination. After a deep breath, Kirk ordered, "Engage."

Once again, the stars twisted and danced around the viewscreen as the ship aligned itself to the new course. As the stars stretched to lines, the Warlord rocketed towards its first appointment with destiny.

Kirk turned to Leiutenant Kelly with a grim face. "Tommy, remember what I told you about saving those parts in the cargo bays?" Tom nodded, still somewhat in shock at what he just heard. "Well, belay that. I need that port cannon operational in six hours. We're going hunting." 


	24. Chapter 24

"Captain's log, stardate 56845.2, Commander Kirk reporting: We have arrived at the intercept coordinates Admiral Leonard gave us. Leiutenant Kelly and his group have been scrounging around looking for parts to repair the port cannon. The last report from him was hopeful, thank goodness. I'll know in a few minutes whether it worked or not. We are currently masked as the USS Nightengale, but have the broad-spectrum tacheon burst running nonstop. We haven't found a peep from anyone or anything, which is kind of nervewracking, since we're in the neutral zone. Waiting for something to happen is driving us nuts. End log entry."

The bridge was eerily silent, save for the occasional beeps, buzzes, and chimes of computer consoles happily going about their business. Because their sensor mask was on, their weapons systems and shields were all powered down. Hopefully, the armor would protect them if the Reman warship fired unexpectedly. Stephen had tried to make some small talk with his bridge crew, but after realizing they weren't in a talkative mood, stopped. At several points of waiting, he decided to silently pray.

His communicator popped. "Kelly to Bridge."

Kirk sat up with a start. The rest of the bridge crew jolted, too. He pressed his badge. "Kirk here. Go ahead, Tommy."

"Commander, we got the port cannon working again. I doubt it'll be good for more than one shot, but if you can fire the cannon at 80 or less power, it should keep from exploding. I'd say you'll want to do that with the starboard cannon, too."

"I'll take note of that, Tommy. Good work. Will you be up here for the duration, or down in engineering?"

"I think I'll be heading down there, if you don't mind, Sir."

"Sounds good, Leiutenant. Congratulate your team for me. Kirk out." He pressed his badge again. He turned to T'Nia. "Well, that's some good news, anyway."

She turned back to face him. "Indeed." she replied calmly. "That means we are as fully operational offensively as possible. I am curious, however. Would it not be more logical to bring our combat systems online? We are planning to engage in combat, after all."

"I'm playing a hunch." Kirk replied. "The Rapier has a mission, too, and a deadline. If we pose as too much of a threat, they may just go around us and clean us up later. If we look like an easy kill, they may stop long enough to take us out."

"With all due respect, Commander," she guarded her words as she spoke, "with our shields down, we are a fairly easy target."

"True enough, but don't forget this ship has fairly substantial armor. Unless they let loose with a full assault, we should be okay after the first volley." Apparently, this discussion aroused the interest of the other bridge crew. They listened intently.

"I see your point, Commander. However, if you are expecting them to delay their mission so they can eliminate easy prey, wouldn't they be better served by destroying us in one volley?"

Kirk considered her point. It was quite valid. "I see your point, Leiutenant Commander. We need to encourage them to NOT destroy us quickly. How do you get an enemy vessel to not want to destroy you outright?" His question was mostly rhetorical.

"The most logical way would be to convince them you have something of value." T'Nia responded with a tilted head.

Somewhat amazed by the answer, Stephen scratched his chin. "Right. What do we have of value..." He snapped his finger and turned to Elaine. "Leiutenant begin a recording." She tapped a few buttons and nodded her head towards Kirk. Kirk looked up at the speaker. "This is Commander Kirk of the USS Nightengale calling the Reman warship Rapier. Our spy network has informed us of your existence, your flight plan, and your mission. Proceed no closer to Romulus or you will be fired upon." Kirk gave the 'cut off' sign to Elaine with his hand.

A green blink of her console confirmed she had the recording. "I have it, Sir. What do you want to do with it?"

"Set that recording to repeat on all hailing frequencies and play it." Kirk said with a smile. "Perhaps they'll be curious to know about our spy network." Stephen turned to T'Nia, raised an eyebrow and smiled. 

She, in turn, raised an eyebrow to him. "An interesting ploy, Commander." She nodded her approval. The rest of the bridge crew nodded and smiled, too. This just might draw them in. Now that they had both cannons available, and the ability to see a cloaked ship, this might be a fight they could win after all.

Elaine issued the necessary commands to her console. Hopefully, no one saw her hands were shaking. This was becoming all too real for her. She felt like running off the bridge screaming. For a moment, she considered not sending the message. Perhaps the warship would just pass them by after all. If we didn't bait them in, perhaps they'd leave for a better target. She squinted her eyes, forcing her back to reality and her mission. Her eyes still closed, she tapped the last button. The message began playing. "It's done, Sir." She said without even turning around. 


	25. Chapter 25

No one looked at the clock. No one dared take their eyes off the viewscreen and it's hypnotizing twinkling of starlight. Even though the tacheon burst continued to show negative, people swore they saw something moving. Only a half hour had passed, but the bridge crew could have sworn they waited hours.

Her worst fears came true. From her communications earpiece, Leiutenant Davies heard the chirp of a communications hail. A quick analysis of her panel couldn't reveal its source. She slowly turned to Commander Kirk. In a low voice, she said, "Commander we're being hailed. I don't know from where. It's audio only."

As if some unseen band director had given them a queue, everyone on the bridge turned to Elaine at the same time. Kirk swallowed. "I guess they went for the bait. Put them through." She clicked a few buttons, then nodded. Kirk sat up straight. "This is Commander Kirk of the USS Nightengale. With whom am I speaking?"

The voice was higher pitched than Kirk figured. It was rough, however. It spoke in broken English and with some kind of impediment. "You are a long way from home, little starship." The voice said simply.

Kirk walked over to T'Nia's station. She was staring at her console intensely. He tapped her on the shoulder, pointed to his eyes, then the speakers, then her console. She correctly interpreted that as 'can you see them from?' She shook her head.

Doubts raced through Stephen's mind. Was the tacheon burst working? Could their cloaking technology have defeated tacheons? Was he really ready for this? He closed his eyes for a moment. This was not the time for doubts. In as stern a voice as he could muster, Stephen replied. "We are exactly where we are supposed to be. Is this the captain of the Rapier I am speaking to?"

"It is." the voice replied. "Your presence in the Neutral Zone is a violation of our treaty, Commander." 

As the voice spoke, Kirk looked to Leiutenant Davies and put two fingers to his lips, the 'mute' sign. She complied, then responded, "Muted, Commander."

Kirk nodded and looked to Tony. "Is the tacheon burst working?"

Tony had already been looking over the program. He looked up from his console and shrugged. "It's working fine, Commander."

The voice continued, "Your presence here could be considered an act of war."

"Commander," T'Nia started, "the scanning range of the tacheon burst is much more limited than normal sensors. It's entirely possible the burst is working fine, but they are out of range."

"We have to find them," Kirk stated flatly. He looked to Davies. "Is there any way you can get us in the general viscinity of that ship?

She thought a moment, the fear of their present situation pushed to the back of her mind. "If we had any type 3, 4, or 5 probes, I could use one of them."

Kirk shook his head. "We don't have any probes. Any other ideas?"

"You should turn that little ship of your around or you may start an interstellar incident." There was laughter heard in the background.

She thought some more. "Well, as long as they don't move, if we got closer to them, I could track the signal strength. That would get us in the area... until they moved, anyway." She tried to look hopeful.

"I tell you what, Commander. If you give me the name of your spy on Remus, we'll forget this ever happened. What do you say?" Even though the communication was audio, everyone knew the Reman captain was smiling.

"Bristol," Kirk spun around to his helmsman. "use the maneuvering thrusters. Turn us back towards Remus. Let's go under the assumption that we were on the way."

"Aye, aye, Commander." Tyler put the commands into his console. Ever so slowly, the vessel complied with the new instructions.

"Commander," Elaine started. "I need them to talk so I can trace them."

"Right. Turn us back on." He thought for a moment while Davies unmuted the system. "First of all, you must be as dumb as you are ugly for thinking we'd believe a lie like that. Second, we're not quite as defenseless as you think." Kirk smiled.

The gruff voice sounded quite upset. "How DARE you? I will smash your ship to pieces, then take what I want! I see what you're doing. You're trying to home in on our conversation. I'm about to make it a little more difficult for you. Enjoy your last few moments of life, Commander. You have just sentenced your crew to death!"

"Commander," Elaine interjected quickly. "They're coming closer. I guess you got their attention."

"I guess so," Kirk replied with a smirk. 

Suddenly, a loud beep came from T'Nia's station. "Commander," T'Nia exclaimed, "I have them...bearing 1-5-6 mark 0-1-9, twenty-five thousand kilometers and closing on a tangent."

The Reman captain's voice sounded amused. "A tacheon field. I am surprised."

Kirk's smile turned somewhat evil. "Oh, you have no idea." He turned towards Leiutenant Moreaux. This was almost too easy. "Leiutenant, drop the mask. Battlestations!" 


	26. Chapter 26

Apparently, the Reman captain had already commited to firing before the Nightengale image dropped. Four torpedos slammed into the hull of the Warlord before the shields could be raised. The ship shuddered ever so slightly. 

"Commander!" Ensign Bristol yelled. "That ship was still cloaked when it fired!"

Stephen tried to remain calm. "I noticed that, too... an interesting, new trick. Davies, report." He said as he stood up.

"I'm getting it now, Commander." Elaine replied while tapping some controls on her console. "One of the torpedos missed entirely. Another bounced off the hull. The other two impacted the exterior hull, but no interior penetration."

"Commander," T'Nia interrupted, "those torpedos were only at half strength. It would seem they wanted us alive."

"I'm sure that's changed." Kirk replied with a smirk. "T'Nia, how are the cannons coming?"

"They have charged to twenty percent, Sir." she replied.

"Those things take forever." Kirk retorted. "How about our shields?"

"Primary shields at full strength, secondary shields offline, Commander." She almost sounded robotic in her response.

"Alright," Stephen concluded, taking in all his options. "Keep the tacheon burst going. Start firing on them with our secondary weapons while the cannons are charging. Let's see if their shields work while cloaked." Kirk turned quickly to his helmsman. "Bristol, stay on their tail for now."

As the Warlord slowly obeyed Tyler's commands, T'Nia saw an opportunity to shoot. After linking the torpedo targetting system to the tacheon burst output, she fired three torpedos. All three torpedos fired behind their target. "Commander," she said calmly, "I cannot use the automatic weapons systems with our computer in its current condition. I shall target and fire manually."

"Good idea...blast this stupid computer!" Kirk exclaimed. He had moved forward to the shared front console where Bristol and T'Nia were stationed.

Tyler tried following the vessel around as it made its turns and dives, but the computer latency proved more of a factor than anyone wanted to admit. The Rapier was slowly making its way behind Warlord. "Commander, I just can't keep up with her. She's moving around...incoming!"

Kirk looked up from the navigation console to see eight torpedos heading for the ship. "Brace for impact!" He said quickly. The crew grabbed their respective consoles. Kirk even dropped to a crouch. On other vessels, even with shields up, there would be a corresponding jolt as the torpedos impacted. There would even be minor amounts of collateral damage. The Warlord never moved. Kirk stood up and stared at T'Nia. "What happened?" He asked, somewhat astonished.

T'Nia, almost looking surprised herself, looked at the shield display. "Our dispersion shields absorbed the full impact of the torpedos. They are down to eighty-six percent. Our cannons are powered to eighty percent now." She added with a nod.

"T'Nia...line up cannon one and fire. She's almost out of range, so make it count." Kirk was leaning on the console now, his face deeply intent.

She moved a few controls on her console. "Firing." She said simply. The entire ship shuddered with the firing of the neutron cannon. A parade of large, green globes flew from the bottom left of the viewscreen into what looked like empty space. Although several of the globes continued into deep space, many struck their prey. The Rapier's cloak dropped. The giant vessel was still larger than Warlord, but not by much. It was black, and in the rough shape of a 'W' on its side. It was sleek, almost graceful in a way. And...now it was missing part of its rear right side.

"Tony," Kirk turned around and spoke quickly, "Start scanning that thing. I want to know everything about it."

"Aye, aye." Leiutenant Moreaux replied. He spun around in his chair began pressing buttons like mad. The computer struggled to keep up with his commands.

"They're firing again." T'Nia said flatly. Kirk turned around just in time to see a full volley of beams of light and shimmering torpedos, like small suns, come at the bottom of the viewscreen. Stephen winced slightly waiting for this impact. Again, the ship never budged. "Shields holding at fifty-two percent, Commander."

Kirk opened his eyes. "Now that's what I call a set of shields." He looked to T'Nia. "Can you reset cannon one?"

She looked at her console. The numerous red, blinking lights said everything. "No, Sir. It is offline. It has also moved out of range of the forward weapons."

Kirk nodded. "Let him have it with the aft weapons until we get more information." She nodded compliance and began firing.

"Commander, I have some information," Tony started.

Kirk turned around. "Let's have it." He said. Stephen didn't want anyone to know, but he was starting to get nervous. There was a lot of firepower coming from that enemy ship and he was starting to lose options.

"It's roughly thirty percent larger than Warlord. It's power comes from a typical Romulan singularity drive, although it's larger. It utilizes a dual shield grid similar to ours, but they are basically standard Romulan shields. I count eighteen disruptor banks; ten fire forward, eight are in three-sixty firing arrays. I count twenty-four torpedo tubes; twelve firing forward, four fire port and aft, four fire directly aft, and four fire starboard aft. Their primary shields are down to sixty-one percent. I can get crew information shortly."

"Don't worry about it, Tony. Are the aft torpedos above or below?" Kirk asked quickly.

"They're mounted below, Commander."

Kirk turned to Bristol. "Tyler, try to stay above her and behind. We can withstand the disruptors longer than the torpedos."

"Aye, aye." Ensign Bristol replied. "But, Commander, they're almost directly behind us."

"We need to do something to even the score a bit." Kirk thought momentarily.

Bristol yelled, "They're firing again! Full spread!"

Kirk looked at T'Nia's tactical display on her console. Sure enough, a number of small torpedos and yellow lines of light were coming at the rear of the Warlord. They all struck. "Shields down to twenty-one percent, Commander." She said calmly.

"T'Nia," Stephen said finally, "Charge cannon two to full. Fire on my mark." He tried to sound calm, but this Reman ship seemed like too much for their crippled ship to take.

"Aye, aye." She answered. She moved the charge to full. Slowly, the guage went up. T'Nia was genuinely curious about this tactic.

"Tyler, when I give the word, I want you to put the port impulse engine to one half reverse and the starboard engine to one half forward."

"Commander, that'll tear the engines apart, won't it?" Tyler asked. The thoughts of heroism had fled him. He was just hoping to survive to see tomorrow. Fear was actually starting to enter his young mind.

"It's a double hull, Ensign," Kirk replied with a wink. "We'll be fine." In his thoughts, he added "I hope".

"T'Nia, when our ship alters course, the Rapier should fly directly in front of us. You should have a clean shot with cannon two. Make it count."

"Understood, Sir." She replied. She braced for what would be a rather tumultous turn.

Kirk watched through the tactical display as the Rapier finished its turn behind the Warlord. "Now!" He yelled.

The great ship lurched violently from the drastic displacement of engine power. Tony was knocked to the ground. Kirk fell behind T'Nia. Alarms sounded from the sudden movement. T'Nia, having held on, remained in her position. Once she saw the Rapier exactly where Stephen said it would be, she fired the starboard cannon. The long trail of green lights all struck the front and side of the warship as it went past. Moments later, the Warlord shuddered violently again. More alarms went off.

Kirk got to all fours. "Bristol, get back behind it and climb on top! Davies, damage report...what happened?"

Tony climbed back into his chair. Elaine started pressing buttons again. Before she could answer, T'Nia answered him. "The starboard cannon system exploded, Commander."

Elaine added, "Commander, there is a large hole through both hulls on the starboard side. The starboard nacell appears to have been damaged, too. The damage control shields eventually sealed the hole... but we lost four people before it sealed."

Kirk's heart sunk.

"T'Nia, keep firing on the warship before it gets behind us again." He said quietly.

"Aye, aye." She responded. Her limited telepathy could easily sense his sorrow and depression. She needed to do something to refocus his thoughts. "Surely the Reman vessel suffered from that last volley." She added.

Tony looked at his panel. "Oh, yes they did!" He said excitedly. "Their primary shields are down, the secondary shields are down to forty-two percent. Their primary shield generator is down, intertial dampeners are offline, at least three decks are exposed to space...hey! All four of their starboard torpedo launchers are down, too!"

"Commander," Bristol started, "they're turning to port in order to get around us this time."

"Figures...there goes THAT advantage." Kirk said. He stood up the rest of the way and tried to consider his options. His eyes brightened. "Bristol, get out of that seat. I have an idea." Tyler did as expected. He should have been disappointed that in such a critical time, the commander wanted him out. BUT...considering they're losing, he'd rather someone with more experience take the controls anyway. Kirk sat in the navigation seat quickly and started pressing buttons. "T'Nia, I'm going to loop us down. I'm guessing the Rapier will swing down and try to beat us to the bottom of the loop. I'm going to pull up short. That'll put them in our forward firing arc. Unload on them."

"Commander," she replied, "that will put us in their forward firing arc as well."

"Yes," he said simply, "it will. Get ready. Here we go." He commanded the vessel to move down. After several moments, it responded. "Boy," he remarked, "this really IS slow. Tyler, have a seat in the captain's chair. This may get bumpy."

Tyler gulped and sat down. The Warlord slowly started its descent. As he predicted, the tactical screen showed the Rapier starting a downward arc as well, but its arc was tighter. If, in fact, both ships continued their present course, the Rapier would reach the bottom of its arc much faster and be in a perfect firing position.

"Get ready." Kirk told T'Nia. As the Warlord started to swing back, Stephen threw the impulse engines into reverse. The crew was jolted in their seats. Many were thrown onto the floor or into their consoles. The adjustment left the Rapier slightly below them. "Fire!" Kirk yelled.

Red pulsating beams and brilliant purple globes of light flew from Warlord's many secondary weapons ports just as the Rapier fired its volley of ordinance in return. The Warlord's bridge crew looked with eyes wide as the weapons close on their vessel. What was left of the shields quickly collapsed. Sparks flew and the ship rocked from the various impacts against the ship. Stephen and Tyler were thrown across the bridge. Elaine and Tony were knocked down. The console T'Nia was at exploded in a shower of sparks. At the last moment, she covered her face with her arm as she tipped over. The bridge became dark, save the flames from T'Nia's console.


	27. Chapter 27

Several moments later, the emergency lights came on as did the view screen. "Back to your stations!" Kirk yelled from the front of the bridge. "Bristol, move us away!" He staggered to his feet, but his right leg gave out on him. Apparently, it was broken. The blood on his hand also informed him of a cut he received as he hit the ground. His wrists also hurt from trying to absorb the fall. He got up to all fours again and looked at the viewscreen.

Bristol got up as quickly as his aching body would let him. Forcing away the pain from his right knee and shoulder, he staggered back to the molded seat and moved the console back to him. The alternate control panels were dark, but he still had impulse power. Daring to look at the position of the Rapier, he issued the orders to move the Warlord off to one side.

T'Nia quietly got up, extreme pain coming from the burns on her left arm and forehead where the sparks and flames burned her. She tried to reach for the extinguisher under her seat, but her left arm wouldn't obey her mental command. Without a word, she reached with her right arm, popped the panel, retrieved the extinguisher and sprayed burned remains of her console. Her station was useless, she noted as she put out the fires.

Elaine was petrified. Her knees were sore, but when she tried to stand, she simply couldn't. She could hear from her earpiece, a few inches from her, numerous voices calling for help. She could smell fire and burned electronics. Her eyes could only see everything through a cloud of red-reflecting smoke. She shook...and shook. Elaine cursed herself trying to get up, but nothing worked... until she felt a hand on her.

Tony sat up from the floor. His knee and elbow hurt from the fall, but after a quick inspection, he was no worse than a few bumps and bruises. For a moment, he thought they were done for. Tyler was desperately trying to get back into the navigation console. T'Nia was trying to put out the fire on her console. Tony could only imagine what the rest of the ship looked like. Then, he looked up at the viewscreen. The Rapier was an absolute mess of twisted metal. Most of the front of the ship was completely exposed to space. The entire left portion of the ship had been completely blown off. Minor explosion and sparks dotted the front and left of the ship. Relaxing somewhat, he dared to take a deep breath, then looked at Elaine, who was actually sobbing on the floor next to him. He crawled over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Come on," he said quietly, "I'll help you up. I think the worst is over."

Reluctantly, she took his hand and fumbled herself into her seat. He took her earpiece off the floor and handed it to her. Her eyes were still terrified, but as she stared into his, his gathering confidence gave her enough confidence to attempt her job. She put the earpiece in and attempted to discern what everyone was saying.

The fire successfully out, T'Nia dropped the empty extinguisher and walked over to the auxiliary computer station next to Leiutenant Davies. Although she was still feeling pain over much of her body, her will power was winning, so the pain was easing. She sat down and brought up the sensors. Short range sensors were operating on a minimal basis, but it was sufficient to see the condition of the other ship. It wasn't quite as wounded as it looked. "Commander," she started, "the Rapier's main drive system is down. It is operating on emergency power only. If my scans are correct, it still has at least three forward disruptors and four torpedo tubes active. It can only maneuver on thrusters, however and it would appear their sensors are all down."

Kirk was crawling back to the captain's seat. "Uh, oh." he replied. "Elaine, how are we doing?"

Still shaking, she stuttered a reply. "Commander... I have red lights all over the ship. The...doctor...he's in engineering. There are a lot of casualties. Um...some of the decks are without power. It looks like our whole weapons grid is down... and so's the warp drive. We still have impulse power, though. I'm still... trying to make sense of everyone yelling."

"Keep at it," Kirk replied. He was trying desperately to hold back the pain that was overtaking his body. "So...they can't move and we can't shoot." Stephen struggled through the pain to come up with options. None were coming to mind. He absently pulled a medikit from under the Captain's chair, removed a support brace and put it around his leg. With the press of a button, it inflated and hardened. "Wait..." He turned back to Elaine. "We're running under auxiliary power, right?" She nodded. "Do the transporters still work?"

She tapped a few buttons on her panel. "The cargo transporter in cargo bay two is still online." She replied.

He stood up gingerly and tested his reinforced leg. It still hurt to put any weight on it, but at least he could move. "T'Nia, how many torpedos do we have left?" He tried to hold back his wincing.

From the computer console, she pressed a few buttons. Eventually, she got her answer. "Commander, we have nine torpedos left... and you might want to do something about your head wound, too. Please hand me the kit when you're finished." Her voice was still calm, belaying the growing pain her mind was having difficulty containing.

He touched his forehead and saw the fresh blood on his hand. "Great. Only nine?" He took a bandage from the kit and pressed it to his head.

T'Nia stated matter-of-factly, "We didn't leave with a full payload, only enough to perform some weapons testing." Kirk tossed the kit to her, which she caught with her good arm. "Thank you." She added.

"They'll have to do. Tony," Kirk spoke with authority. An idea was coming to his mind. "follow me... and bring your system tricorder with you. We need to reprogram some torpedos...and hurry. My guess is whoever is left on that ship is trying to fix it." Kirk headed for the turbolift door.

"Coming, Commander." Leiutenant Moreaux said. He had hoped this was over, but apparently it wasn't. With a quick scan around his station, he found his tricorder on the floor. He snatched it up quickly, patted Elaine on the shoulder and winked. She smiled back weakly. She knew it wasn't over, either. The turbolift doors closed behind them. 


	28. Chapter 28

"Cargo bay two." Kirk squeezed the turbolift control lever. It was a rocky ride down and back.

"What's your plan, Steve?" Tony asked. Now that they were alone, Tony felt like he could call his commander by his REAL name.

Kirk relaxed a little and let the pain show through his face a little more. He opened his eyes and turned to his friend. "We're going to transport those torpedos into the Reman warship, but we need to put them on a delayed charge. Normally, we could have just done that through the weapons console..."

"...but it's a burned out mess." Tony finished. "So, we have to do it manually. I get it." Tony smiled and nodded. This just might work.

"Exactly...but, we have to finish this before they can see what we're doing. I don't want them to have the opportunity to screw this up." The lift shook again. Stephen winced as he was forced to put pressure on his broken leg to remain standing.

"You really ought to get that looked at. I can manage this." Tony offered sympathetically. Suddenly, Steve wasn't the inexperienced too-rapidly-promoted-for-his-own-good commander any more. Tony now saw him as his old Academy buddy... and he was hurting.

"Thanks for the offer, Tony." Stephen replied. "I'll get it looked at when we have time. How are you doing?"

"Knees are a little achy, but I'm good."

Stephen nodded. "Good. I may need to lean on you before this is over." Kirk smiled...he was only half kidding. "Now comes the not so pleasant part." Kirk's face grew grim. He tapped his comm badge. "Kirk to engineering."

A few moments later, the badge popped. "Kelly here, Commander." He sounded out of breath and coughed.

"What's your status, Leiutenant?"

"It's a mess down here, Commander." He replied. "We've got smoke everywhere. Most of the systems have completely burned out. I've got a lot of casualties, too. I count at least three dead and three unconscious. The doc's down here trying to patch us up. Did we win?"

"Not yet." Kirk replied quickly. "But we're about to. You need to get some kind of warp drive working." The doors to the turbolift opened. Straight ahead, they could see the large double doors to the cargo bay.

"Aye, aye, Commander." Kelly's voice sounded weary.

"Just stay with me for a few more minutes, Tom. This part will be over soon. Kirk out." He tapped his badge again. 

The lights in the hall wavered in intensity as they slowly made for the cargo bay. The doors opened to reveal a mess of equipment and boxes. The numerous jolts must have knocked things around. So much for securing our cargo, Kirk thought. He limped over to the transporter contols. Tony opened his small computing device and started looking for data on the new high-yield quantum torpedos. Kirk used the transporter controls to locate the torpedos in the main launch bay. After several precious seconds of button punching, Kirk finally had the location on the transporter control. With a wave of his hand, the large, white circular pad in the cargo bay began to glisten with sparkling lights. After the hum of electricity subsided and the lights vanished, there were nine, neatly stacked high-yield quantum torpedos on racks atop the pad.

"Got 'em." Kirk said finally. "Tony, I need you to program a ten second delay before detonation. Try to link that to some kind of signal so we can trigger them all at once." Kirk looked over the giant, black, ovoid casings. They were roughly twice as large as a standard torpedo, but contained over five times the firepower. 

"I will as soon as I can get the data charts for these new torpedos." Kirk examined the nearest torpedo more closely, and saw the access panel. "I have to link with our computer and it's going really...ah...there it is." Hobbling over to an access panel near the door, Kirk pulled out a tool, walked back to the torpedo, and started removing the panel. "Hang on a sec while I figure out what I'm doing." Tony'e eyes never looked up from his small screen. "Okay...got it. We need to get the access panel off first." Tony looked up. "You need a..." then noticed Stephen was already removing a panel.

Kirk smiled back at his friend. "I figured this part out. What's next?" The access panel popped open with the last screw removed. Inside, there was a smaller panel along with a keypad.

Tony pressed a few more buttons while Stephen started opening other torpedos. "Okay...we need to get to the guidance module. We can either program them one at a time...or..." Tony had another thought. "Hey...we'll do that instead. I have a better idea. Open one of the interior system panels. Go back to that first one." Kirk did as instructed. Tony read from the system schematics on his tricorder. "Type the following number on the keypad: 1, 5, 3, 6, 9, 0 then press 'Commit'"

Kirk pressed the numbers as Tony read them. "Okay." He pressed 'Commit'. The smaller panel opened to reveal a number of bluish colored, rectangular isolinear chips in numbered banks. "I'm staring at a bunch of isolinear chips."

"Good," Tony replied. "Hand me the chip that's in bank zero, three." Kirk removed it and tossed it to Leiutenant Moreaux. Tony popped the chip into the side of his tricorder. He began pressing buttons on the tricorder like mad. "Instead of going from torpedo to torpedo and use the keypad to reprogram each one, I'm going to use the configuration program on this chip to make the necessary changes. I'll save the new configuration, then we can just copy it from chip to chip."

"Sounds like a plan, Tony." Kirk wasn't much into computer programming, so he figured he'd let Tony do what he does best.

Tony chuckled. "You always did have to copy my answers in our System Development classes. Start getting the chips out of those other torpedos...SIR."

Stephen realized Tony was in his element now. He let the sarcastic 'SIR' slide. He started opening the access panels and retrieving the necessary chips. His comm badge popped. "Bridge to Commander Kirk." It was T'Nia's voice.

He tapped his badge. "Kirk here. What's up, T'Nia?"

"I'm registering increased power levels on the Rapier. It would seem they have impulse power back. It would be logical to assume their sensors will return shortly."

Kirk tapped his badge again. "Bristol, this is Kirk."

The badge popped again. "Ensign Bristol here, Sir." There was more than a hint of nervousness in his voice.

"Stay high and off the Rapier's starboard side, okay?" Kirk tried to sound calm, but he knew the clock was ticking down.

"I've been doing that, Sir. They've been trying to turn using their maneuvering thrusters. I guess they've been trying to look for us. I've been keeping us out of their line of sight."

"Good man, Bristol. Keep up the good work. We're almost done here. Kirk out."

Tony was excited. "I got it! I fixed the program. All I have to do is send a signal from my tricorder and they'll blow ten seconds later!"

Kirk's smile was wide. "Good job, Leiutenant Moreaux! Let's get to it. We're running out of time." They began swapping chips like some kind of juggling act. As Tony finished with the last chip. he walked up to the transporter pad and handed it to Stephen. He grabbed the tool and started closing the access panels. Kirk patted him on the back. "You're a good man, Tony. I don't care WHAT Box says about you." He headed over to the transporter controls and started looking for places on the Rapier to put his new bombs.

"Whatever..." Tony said with a smile. He secured the last panel. "They're all on."

Kirk's comm badge popped again. "Commander Kirk," it was T'Nia's voice again. "their sensors are back online."

Kirk found his location, deep in the heart of the enemy vessel. He tapped his badge. "Understood." He tapped his badge again. "Kirk to Bristol...get us out of here, full impulse power. Tangent off their starboard side."

His badge popped. "Aye, aye, Sir."

Kirk turned to Tony. "Start the countdown."

Tony stepped off the pad and pressed a button on his tricorder.

"Ten"

"Nine"

"Eight" Kirk started pressing buttons to lock the location into the transporter.

"Seven"

"Six" With a wave of his hand, shimmering lights encircled the newly programmed torpedos.

"Five"

"Four" The torpedos disappeared from the cargo bay.

Kirk's badge popped again. It was T'Nia. "Commander Kirk, they have come around and are locking their weapons."

"Three"

Another pop. "Commander, this is Kelly. I got you partial warp power from the port nacell."

"Thank God!" Kirk replied. He tapped his badge. "Kirk to Bristol...go to warp! Get us out of here!" Stephen pressed a button on the transporter console so he could see what the bridge viewscreen was showing. The Rapier was pointed straight at them, but was getting gradually smaller.

"Two!"

"Aye, aye!" Bristol replied. The ship began to hum. 

"One!"

In the background, Kirk could hear T'Nia's voice saying the Reman ship had fired. He looked at the screen and saw three green balls of light coming at them, but it was too late. Stars elongated to rays of light and the ship went to warp.

"NOW!" Tony yelled. They both looked at the small view screen on the console. Moments after he spoke, they saw a small explosion in the area where the Rapier had been, but they were too far away to make any details.

"Yeah!" They both cheered as they hugged each other. Unknown to them at the time, the rest of the crew had been looking at monitors of their own. As the remains of the Rapier exploded, they cheered as well. 


	29. Chapter 29

"Captain's log, stardate: 56850.4, Commander Kirk reporting... After destroying the Rapier we headed for Romulus at warp four. It's taken us almost five hours to get there. Leiutenant Kelly was able to get one of the phaser arrays working. Thankfully, we didn't need it. The Enterprise had destroyed the Scimitar already. Our communication with Starfleet and the Enterprise has been restored. I guess Enterprise is in worse shape that us. Commander Riker said they lost almost two hundred people including their second officer. I guess I should be thankful we only lost eight. I'll be talking with them in just a moment. Captain Picard was having some discussions with what's left of the Romulan government, but he wanted to talk to me. I'll make another log entry when that's done. End log entry."

"Put him on screen." Kirk was back in the captain's chair, his leg in a regenerative cast, his head wound healed with the dermal regenerator and pain medication for his wrists. He observed his bridge crew. Leiutenant Davies came through fairly well having suffered a minor sprain in her wrist. Tony, of course, was fine except for some sore knees. T'Nia's arm and the burns to her face had been restored. She was sitting in the auxiliary computer control. Tyler had been knocked to the floor, but other than some soreness, he was in good shape, too. Tom Kelly was now back on the bridge monitoring engineering from his console. He had a large pipe collapse on him and had suffered minor internal injuries from being pinned to the ground. They were healing nicely. The doctor and his EMH 'assitant' had performed well beyond expectations...as everyone else did.

There was a quiet peace about the bridge. No one had really spoken for that five hour trip, except for an occasional ship report from Elaine. Maybe it was the near-death experience they almost had together, maybe it was the sense of loss of crewmates, maybe it was their wounds...maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, Stephen was content to let everyone be silent. He had his own demons to wrestle with. For that five hour trip, all Stephen could think about was what could have been done differently. Something...anything... that could have kept those eight people alive. He blamed himself for the overloading of the cannon that caused it to explode. He blamed himself for not being able to compensate for the lag time of the computer. The same voice of doubt had swelled within him saying his critics were right. He had no business in Starfleet, let alone command. Perhaps Captain Velasquez was wrong in choosing him. Prayer was the furthest thing from his mind.

"Commander Stephen Kirk." The voice was somewhat familiar. He had heard it on newscasts and seminars before... but that voice had never called his name.

Kirk struggled to snap himself out of his mental arguement and looked up at the viewscreen. He saw the image of Captain Jean-Luc Picard standing on his bridge. He could see the rest of his bridge crew seated as well, save the science officer's seat. "Captain Picard," he started. "It's an honor, Sir."

Captain Picard's face smiled wide. "The honor is mine, Commander." He replied. There was definately something regal in his voice, his presence, even his accent. Captain Picard had suffered even greater loss than he, yet his voice was calm, authoritative, almost fatherly. "From what I hear, the crew of the Enterprise owes you a great debt of gratitude."

"It looks like you held your own." Stephen replied with a weary smile. As grateful as he was to be talking to a living legend, right Stephen just wanted to go to bed.

"There's no need for modesty here, Commander. We would not have survived an attack by two of those warships. There's no telling what would have happened within the Romulan Empire. This day has turned the course in the Federation's relations with the Romulans. The Warlord was key to that. As we mourn our losses this day, we must remember to rejoice in the greater good that was accomplished. I will personally see to it that your entire crew receives official commendations for your performance." With that, the bridge crew of the Enterprise stood up and clapped.

The bridge crew of the Warlord looked at each other. They had been missing that speech. As they smiled, looking back on what their sacrifices had yielded, they realized that there was a bigger picture. Their chests puffed and they sat somewhat higher in their seats. Everyone except T'Nia, of course. She was simply content to stay where she was. She acknowledged the compliement with her standard nod. Eventually, the Enterprise crew sat down.

Kirk struggled to hold back tearing up. Perhaps he did the right thing after all. Perhaps this was a victory he could savor...eventually. He took a deep breath. His voice was sincere. "Thank you, Captain." Stephen's voice became official, his stance military-straight. "I have been ordered by Starfleet to render any assistance you may need in repairing your ship for travel. Once your vessel is warp capable, we are to escort you back to Spacedock for repairs."

Picard understood Kirk's need to not be caught up in the moment. "I understand, Commander. The Romulan government has a number of issues to deal with. I have been told by one of their interim Proconsul that formal talks between the Federation and the Romulan Empire will begin once their government is re-established. Our chief engineer has already informed me that we should have warp power within the hour, at which time Enterprise would be honored to have Warlord escort us home." Picard's voice warmed again. "Once we are under way, I would consider it a personal favor if some of my officers could beam over and personally shake your hands over dinner."

Stephen smiled. "I'll make sure we bring out the good silverware, Sir."

Picard smiled back. "Very good. We'll contact you as soon as we're ready to leave. Enterprise out." The viewscreen switched to a full picture of what was left of the Enterprise. The planet Romulus could been seen below it.

Stephen sat back down in the captain's chair with a heavy sigh. He turned to T'Nia. "I'll be very happy when Captain Velasquez takes her seat back." He added a smile.

"Really?" She questioned. With a patented Vulcan raised eyebrow, she continued. "I thought it suited you quite well." The rest of the bridge crew, having turned to watch the conversation, each considered the possibility, then smiled and returned to their posts.

Stephen wanted to change the subject. "Oh?" He quipped with a smirk. "I would think you have more important issues to consider."

Her eyebrow raised even further. "As in...Sir?"

Kirk pointed to the burned out remains of her console. "As in that workstation of yours. Look at the messy condition of that console. What kind of outfit do you think we run here?" He bit his lip to keep from smiling.

Without missing a beat, T'Nia replied, "I believe my job description mentions USING the console, not tidying up after it, Sir." 


	30. Epilogue

There, somewhere between Romulus and Remus, in the blackness of space, floated the burned out remains of the Reman warship Rapier. Its hull was blown almost completely in half with the last attack. Its front smashed and exposed to space. It's starboard side taken off. Its power levels at zero. Life sign readings were none. For all intents and purposes, a useless lump of twisted metal and dead bodies floating in space. Yet, someone had a use for it. From the darkness, two ships wavered into view like images through a wave of water. One image appeared as a large, green Romulan warbird. The other image appeared as a cargo transport, converted to a tug ship. Slowly, the tug ship turned to face away from the wreckage. A beam of shimmering light then shot from the rear of the tug ship and encircled the Rapier. The two vessels, and their salvage began to waver and disappear from view.

Just then, two more vessels wavered into sight. They also resembled Romulan warbirds, but were painted black in color, barely discernable from the surrounding darkness of space. Only the silvery insignia of the Reman nation could be seen on their underbelly. With the other three vessels still shimmering out of the visible spectrum of light, the new ships fired all their weapons. With the green Romulan warbird and the tug ship in the process of cloaking, they could not raise their shields in time. Both ships exploded within moments. The wreckage of the Rapier came back into view once the tug ship was destroyed. Having dispatched their competitors for the prize, the two Reman warbirds latched onto the remains of the Rapier with tractor beams, and began the slow trek back to Remus. 


End file.
